Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 1, 2010 21:09:47 GMT
What could be more perfect - it's a match made in heaven.
Jacqui Smith applies for top BBC job: £77k a year for just 2½ days a week... and all the expenses former minister can claim
By Glen Owen
Last updated at 2:24 PM on 1st August 2010
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has sparked fury by bidding for a top BBC job less than three months after her political career ended in disgrace.
The ex-cabinet minister, who famously charged taxpayers for the cost of watching two pornographic films, is lobbying to become vice-chairman of the BBC Trust.
The plum position pays £77,000 a year for a two-and-a-half-day week and also offers generous perks.
Ms Smith is hoping to replace the current vice-chairman, Chitra Bharucha, who is stepping down at the end of October.
Jacqui Smith
Ready for more: Jacqui Smith and her husband Richard. Both became early victims of the expenses scandal last year. It was revealed she claimed the cost of two adult films that she later said had been watched by her husband
Last month Ms Bharucha, who is deputy to Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, was at the centre of her own expenses furore when it was revealed that she had claimed back the cost of a Sky TV subscription from the BBC.
It was part of more than £60,000 of claims made by the 12 members of the trust in just six months.
The Government is likely to be alarmed by news of Ms Smith’s bid at a time of growing friction between ministers and the BBC.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt - who would have to approve any new BBC trustee - recently attacked the organisation’s ‘extraordinary and outrageous’ waste, particularly in relation to its executives’ lavish pay and perks.
Dr Chitra Bharucha
BBC Trust vice-chairman: Mrs Smith hopes to replace Dr Chitra Bharucha, who herself was embroiled in an expenses scandal
He said he could ‘absolutely’ see viewers being asked to pay less than the current licence fee of £145.50.
A BBC source said there had been ‘a certain degree of surprise’ when Ms Smith’s CV arrived two weeks ago.
‘I am not sure she is quite what we are looking for at a time when we are desperately trying to repair our own battered image,’ the source said.
Yesterday, when contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Ms Smith said: ‘How did you know that I had applied?’
Asked whether she thought her bid was likely to succeed, she said: ‘I have made an application, that’s all I know’, before adding ‘f*** off’ and terminating the conversation.
The deadline for applications for the vice-chairman post expired last week. An announcement about the successful candidate is expected to be made by the end of the summer.
Last night, Conservative MP Philip Davies said: ‘I have no idea what she thinks she has to offer the BBC Trust. Maybe she wants to go down with another sinking ship, like she did with her Government.
'The last thing they need is another Labour luvvie. I just hope they have the sense to blast it out of court.’
Ms Smith, 47, became one of the earliest victims of last year’s expenses scandal when The Mail on Sunday revealed that she had designated a house in London owned by her sister as her main residence, enabling her to claim Commons second-home allowances on her constituency house in Redditch, despite claiming on her website that she lived in the town.
Over six years, the then home secretary banked more than £116,000 for items including a flat-screen TV and scatter cushions.
Ms Smith’s embarrassment deepened when it was disclosed that she had charged the taxpayer for a telecoms bill containing four pay-per-view films, including two adult titles.
She blamed her husband Richard Timney, who worked as her parliamentary adviser, for watching the films while she was away.
Jacqui Smith
Commons apology: Mrsi Smith was forced to make a statement in the House of Commons after she had breached rules on second-home expenses
Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon later concluded that Ms Smith was in breach of Commons rules for claiming for the films and stating that her constituency home was not her main home.
Ms Smith, who was forced to make a personal statement of apology to the Commons, said she was ‘disappointed that this process had not led to a fairer set of circumstances’.
Ms Smith returned to the back benches last summer in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet reshuffle, before losing her seat in May’s General Election.
She was entitled to receive a Commons ‘parachute payment’ of £32,300 to help her adjust to life outside Parliament and a ‘winding-up allowance’ of up to £42,000 towards the costs of closing down her offices, including a redundancy payment for her husband.
As a former MP, she is also entitled to a gold-plated pension worth an estimated £20,000 a year, which she can pick up when she turns 65.
But the couple will need to find work: they have two children, and are still paying the mortgage on the detached home in Redditch which they bought six years ago
for £300,000.
Before winning the Redditch seat in 1997, Ms Smith worked as a schoolteacher. Mr Timney trained as a civil engineer before joining his wife’s payroll.
Yesterday, her former constituency agent Graham Vickery said that Mr Timney was setting up a public-sector consultancy business. ‘It is only exploratory at the moment, but I am sure it will go well,’ he said.
When asked about Ms Smith’s BBC application, he said: ‘It was not something I thought she would do. I thought she would involve herself in academic work, where she is particularly strong.’
In the wake of Ms Smith’s election defeat, Mr Vickery admitted that she had been ‘blindly optimistic’ about her chances of keeping her seat, which she held with a 2,700 majority.
But at the polls she lost to the Conservatives’ Karen Lumley by a margin of nearly 6,000.
He said at the time: ‘I don’t think Jacqui knows what she will do next.’
The trust was set up as the BBC’s governing body in October 2006 by Tessa Jowell when she was culture secretary.
Independent of the BBC’s management, it is responsible for setting the corporation’s strategic direction and for ‘acting in the best interests of licence-fee payers’.
Appointments are made by the Queen on the recommendation of government ministers.
Those who apply to be trustees are shortlisted and interviewed by a panel chaired by a senior civil servant.
The panel sends its recommendation to the Culture Secretary.
Ms Bharucha was among four trustees who were heavily criticised in February 2008 for spending £20,000 of licence-payers’ money to take a group of ‘opinion-formers and stakeholders’ to the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Last month it was disclosed that the trust had spent £60,000 in expenses over a six-month period.
That figure included more than £16,000 claimed by Sir Michael, in addition to his annual £142,000 salary and use of a car and driver valued at £27,499.
Ms Bharucha included a claim for £175 to cover the cost of seven months of her Sky TV subscription.
The chairman is expected to spend three to four days a week on trust business, the vice-chair about two-and-a-half days and other trustees just two days.
Mr Hunt has said publicly that he doubts the efficacy and usefulness of the trust, but he has granted it a stay of execution in the run-up to next year’s licence-fee negotiations.
Last month he said: ‘There are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.’
A spokeswoman for the BBC trust said: ‘We would not comment on what is an ongoing recruitment process. Although the trust chairman sits on the interview panel, the final decision on the appointment will be made by the Government.’
A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport also said it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing appointments process.
By Glen Owen
Last updated at 2:24 PM on 1st August 2010
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has sparked fury by bidding for a top BBC job less than three months after her political career ended in disgrace.
The ex-cabinet minister, who famously charged taxpayers for the cost of watching two pornographic films, is lobbying to become vice-chairman of the BBC Trust.
The plum position pays £77,000 a year for a two-and-a-half-day week and also offers generous perks.
Ms Smith is hoping to replace the current vice-chairman, Chitra Bharucha, who is stepping down at the end of October.
Jacqui Smith
Ready for more: Jacqui Smith and her husband Richard. Both became early victims of the expenses scandal last year. It was revealed she claimed the cost of two adult films that she later said had been watched by her husband
Last month Ms Bharucha, who is deputy to Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, was at the centre of her own expenses furore when it was revealed that she had claimed back the cost of a Sky TV subscription from the BBC.
It was part of more than £60,000 of claims made by the 12 members of the trust in just six months.
The Government is likely to be alarmed by news of Ms Smith’s bid at a time of growing friction between ministers and the BBC.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt - who would have to approve any new BBC trustee - recently attacked the organisation’s ‘extraordinary and outrageous’ waste, particularly in relation to its executives’ lavish pay and perks.
Dr Chitra Bharucha
BBC Trust vice-chairman: Mrs Smith hopes to replace Dr Chitra Bharucha, who herself was embroiled in an expenses scandal
He said he could ‘absolutely’ see viewers being asked to pay less than the current licence fee of £145.50.
A BBC source said there had been ‘a certain degree of surprise’ when Ms Smith’s CV arrived two weeks ago.
‘I am not sure she is quite what we are looking for at a time when we are desperately trying to repair our own battered image,’ the source said.
Yesterday, when contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Ms Smith said: ‘How did you know that I had applied?’
Asked whether she thought her bid was likely to succeed, she said: ‘I have made an application, that’s all I know’, before adding ‘f*** off’ and terminating the conversation.
The deadline for applications for the vice-chairman post expired last week. An announcement about the successful candidate is expected to be made by the end of the summer.
Last night, Conservative MP Philip Davies said: ‘I have no idea what she thinks she has to offer the BBC Trust. Maybe she wants to go down with another sinking ship, like she did with her Government.
'The last thing they need is another Labour luvvie. I just hope they have the sense to blast it out of court.’
Ms Smith, 47, became one of the earliest victims of last year’s expenses scandal when The Mail on Sunday revealed that she had designated a house in London owned by her sister as her main residence, enabling her to claim Commons second-home allowances on her constituency house in Redditch, despite claiming on her website that she lived in the town.
Over six years, the then home secretary banked more than £116,000 for items including a flat-screen TV and scatter cushions.
Ms Smith’s embarrassment deepened when it was disclosed that she had charged the taxpayer for a telecoms bill containing four pay-per-view films, including two adult titles.
She blamed her husband Richard Timney, who worked as her parliamentary adviser, for watching the films while she was away.
Jacqui Smith
Commons apology: Mrsi Smith was forced to make a statement in the House of Commons after she had breached rules on second-home expenses
Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon later concluded that Ms Smith was in breach of Commons rules for claiming for the films and stating that her constituency home was not her main home.
Ms Smith, who was forced to make a personal statement of apology to the Commons, said she was ‘disappointed that this process had not led to a fairer set of circumstances’.
Ms Smith returned to the back benches last summer in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet reshuffle, before losing her seat in May’s General Election.
She was entitled to receive a Commons ‘parachute payment’ of £32,300 to help her adjust to life outside Parliament and a ‘winding-up allowance’ of up to £42,000 towards the costs of closing down her offices, including a redundancy payment for her husband.
As a former MP, she is also entitled to a gold-plated pension worth an estimated £20,000 a year, which she can pick up when she turns 65.
But the couple will need to find work: they have two children, and are still paying the mortgage on the detached home in Redditch which they bought six years ago
for £300,000.
Before winning the Redditch seat in 1997, Ms Smith worked as a schoolteacher. Mr Timney trained as a civil engineer before joining his wife’s payroll.
Yesterday, her former constituency agent Graham Vickery said that Mr Timney was setting up a public-sector consultancy business. ‘It is only exploratory at the moment, but I am sure it will go well,’ he said.
When asked about Ms Smith’s BBC application, he said: ‘It was not something I thought she would do. I thought she would involve herself in academic work, where she is particularly strong.’
In the wake of Ms Smith’s election defeat, Mr Vickery admitted that she had been ‘blindly optimistic’ about her chances of keeping her seat, which she held with a 2,700 majority.
But at the polls she lost to the Conservatives’ Karen Lumley by a margin of nearly 6,000.
He said at the time: ‘I don’t think Jacqui knows what she will do next.’
The trust was set up as the BBC’s governing body in October 2006 by Tessa Jowell when she was culture secretary.
Independent of the BBC’s management, it is responsible for setting the corporation’s strategic direction and for ‘acting in the best interests of licence-fee payers’.
Appointments are made by the Queen on the recommendation of government ministers.
Those who apply to be trustees are shortlisted and interviewed by a panel chaired by a senior civil servant.
The panel sends its recommendation to the Culture Secretary.
Ms Bharucha was among four trustees who were heavily criticised in February 2008 for spending £20,000 of licence-payers’ money to take a group of ‘opinion-formers and stakeholders’ to the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Last month it was disclosed that the trust had spent £60,000 in expenses over a six-month period.
That figure included more than £16,000 claimed by Sir Michael, in addition to his annual £142,000 salary and use of a car and driver valued at £27,499.
Ms Bharucha included a claim for £175 to cover the cost of seven months of her Sky TV subscription.
The chairman is expected to spend three to four days a week on trust business, the vice-chair about two-and-a-half days and other trustees just two days.
Mr Hunt has said publicly that he doubts the efficacy and usefulness of the trust, but he has granted it a stay of execution in the run-up to next year’s licence-fee negotiations.
Last month he said: ‘There are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.’
A spokeswoman for the BBC trust said: ‘We would not comment on what is an ongoing recruitment process. Although the trust chairman sits on the interview panel, the final decision on the appointment will be made by the Government.’
A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport also said it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing appointments process.