Well, well, well. There has been a rather interesting appointment made to the Foreign Office board by David Lammy, as Karen Blackett joins as a non-executive director. This is not the advertising executive’s first brush with the now-Foreign Secretary however – as it transpires that Blackett is actually a Lammy donor, putting a whopping £5,000 towards the Labour MP’s campaign in the run-up to the general election last summer. How very interesting…
Blackett has joined the board to help provide ‘strategic direction, oversight, support and challenge for the department with a view to the long-term health, reputation and success of the FCDO’ – and will be paid up to £15,000 a year for the job, which typically requires a commitment of 20 days a year for three years. Alright for some!
The 53-year-old appointee has an impressive CV – being the president of the world’s largest advertising company, WPP, between 2022 and 2024, and has advised government in the past. Notably, Blackett served as an external adviser to the Cabinet Office, helping to diversify the civil service. Indeed, it is understood that the Foreign Office board’s new hire underwent all the required vetting procedures for the role, and a spokesperson for the department noted:
Karen Blackett was appointed as part of a fair and open public recruitment campaign which fully adhered to the governance code on public appointments, including due diligence of candidates in advance of interviews. The panel, comprised of FCDO officials and independent members, judged her appointable to the role.
It’s not the first time Labour donors have been handed advisory appointments, however. Last summer, just a month after Sir Keir Starmer’s party won a landslide victory, the hiring of party donor Ian Corfield as a director of investment at the Treasury raised eyebrows. Amid accusations of cronyism, Corfield then resigned from the Treasury role to take up an unpaid adviser position instead. And the appointment of Emily Middleton to the Department for Science and Technology raised ‘cash for jobs’ concerns after it emerged she was a party donor, with the former businesswoman’s consultancy firm having given a whopping £66,000 to the party in the past.
Mr S would note that, in the case of Blackett, the governance code on public appointments states that political activity should not be a bar to appointment. It can’t have hurt her chances to have a history as a supporter of the Foreign Secretary though, eh?
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