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The public dispute between UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch and ousted Post Office chair Henry Staunton risks deterring experienced business executives from applying for senior public sector roles, serving and former senior officials have warned.
They said there was mounting frustration over what they regard as the growing politicisation of ministers’ engagement with public bodies that are overseen by Whitehall.
“I have become so cynical of the political processes we are exposed to on a daily basis,” said one board member at a high-profile regulator, adding that this made him firmly predisposed to believe Staunton’s version of events.
Badenoch sacked Staunton last month after a public outcry sparked by a TV drama about private prosecutions by the state-owned Post Office between 1999 and 2015 using evidence from its faulty Horizon IT system, which led to hundreds of postmasters being wrongly convicted.
“I’m very upset about it all,” the board member said of the way Badenoch dismissed Staunton. “It really demonstrates the extent to which politicians are sometimes prepared, ruthlessly and quite unfairly, to chuck anybody under the bus to protect their reputation or enhance their reputation.”
Staunton, a City veteran appointed to head the Post Office in 2022 after the extent of the Horizon scandal was clear, triggered the high-profile war of words by hitting back at Badenoch in an interview last weekend with the Sunday Times over his sacking.
The pair clashed over the reasons for his dismissal and the veracity of his claim that a top civil servant told him last year to delay compensation payments to victims of the scandal ahead of an election.
The business secretary has accused Staunton of making “wild, baseless allegations”. She has said he was dismissed over concerns about his conduct, including the handling of a board appointment and allegations of bullying, which he has disputed.
One person close to Badenoch denied this dispute reflected a wider politicisation of senior public roles by ministers. “This has nothing to do with how she or the government operates, and everything to do with Staunton’s increasingly bizarre decision to give an interview full of falsehoods and partial anecdotes to the Sunday Times.”
The government said it expected “a high level of experience and professional conduct in public roles” and that “holders of public office are expected to maintain and work to those professional standards”.
Staunton’s spokesperson said the former chair of retailer WHSmith had felt compelled to speak out rather than remain silent because the business secretary’s decision to sack him risked damaging his legacy and reputation. He did not want a cloud hanging over him after being forced to leave, the spokesperson added.
Both sides have stood by their version of events, releasing documents that they say prove they are right. By Wednesday night, Staunton’s spokesperson said the affair had degenerated into an “unseemly political spat which Mr Staunton was not seeking”.
Mark Freebairn, partner at one of the UK’s biggest headhunters Odgers Berndtson, said the row was “not going to be helpful” in encouraging experienced executives to apply for high-profile public sector roles.
“Very few, if any, business leaders develop their career hoping to become famous. Henry is well-known, liked and respected. Being front-page news won’t make him or colleagues keener on roles that create that level of risk,” said Freebairn, whose firm advises both public and private sector organisations.
Two former regulators echoed the view of the serving board member that the government had become more political in its approach to external bodies and its interactions with their leaders.
All three raised the government’s handling of the “debanking” of politician Nigel Farage by NatWest, which ultimately led to the departure of the tax-payer-backed lender’s chief executive Dame Alison Rose. They said that while ministers may have needed to take action in that case because Rose had acted inappropriately, the situation was dealt with in an unnecessarily political and public way.
Two of them also cited the protracted search for new leadership at Ofcom, the communications watchdog, during Boris Johnson’s premiership, which was marred by claims of political interference.
One said he had recently turned down an approach about applying to head a public body because he believed he would need to have a “death wish” to accept it.
“I took one look at it and thought: what would happen if something goes wrong? Would you trust a minister not to come for you?” he said. Some ministers were reasonable and would “not stab you in the back”, the person added.
But the personal risks to leaders dealing with the government had been made worse by a political system that has become driven by a 24-hour news cycle and social media, he said.
Additional reporting by Rafe Uddin
