Watchdog review begins into BBC chairman's hiring
Mr Shawcross - who is in charge of regulating how people are hired to public roles, such as the Bank of England governor or BBC chairman - announced his review on Monday, after Labour had written to him over the weekend calling for him to do so.Mr Sharp said he welcomed the commissioner's review.
The body that will look at this is the BBC Nominations Committee, which is headed by Mr Sharp as chairman. However, the BBC understands he would recuse himself from this exercise in due diligence. "He spoke to me because he trusts me and wanted to check with me what the right way to go about this could be. I told him that this was a sensitive area in any event, particularly so as Sam [Blyth] is a Canadian, and that he should seek to have the Cabinet Office involved and have the cabinet secretary advise on appropriateness and indeed whether any financial support Sam might wish to provide was possible.
He told MPs: "There was a very robust process in place for the appointment of the chairman at the BBC, including a pre-appointment hearing." Downing Street has rejected allegations of "cronyism" and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also defended the BBC appointment process as "rigorous" and "transparent".
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