William Shawcross
William Shawcross is a British journalist. He is the chiarman of the Charity Commission.
Shawcross was one of a number of people invited to meet US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a stopover at Heathrow on 13 September 2005.[1]
Charity Commission
He was named by the Cabinet Office as the proposed chair of the Charity Commission in August 2012.[2]
At a hearing of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee to examine his appointment, the chair Bernard Jenkin noted:
- One or two of us have to put some interests on the record, however peripheral they may be. You are a Director and Trustee of the Henry Jackson SocietyThe Henry Jackson Society provides the Secretariat for the All- Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security, of which I am Chairman. I also published a pamphlet in co-operation with the Henry Jackson Society a couple of years ago.[3]
Robert Halfon stated: "I should declare that I was a founding patron of the Henry Jackson Society when it was first set up and I am fairly involved with the organisation."[3]
A third committee member, Paul Flynn added: I think perhaps I had better say that the Henry Jackson Society organised a meeting at which I was a prime speaker, to my astonishment.[3]
Shawcross stated during proceedings:
- Obviously I would wish to resign all my memberships of the Henry Jackson Society and other charities with which I am involved. I think the Henry Jackson Society is a great society and I am very pleased that they had you come to speak, Mr Flynn. Henry Jackson himself was a great American senator who stood not just for right‑wing views but for freedom and liberty everywhere. That is what the society stands for now. I would do everything necessary and speak to the chief executive of the Charity Commission to make sure I was seen to be always acting in an independent manner.[3]
In an October 2012 article on Labour 'fifth columnists' in the charitable sector, Fraser Nelson, wrote:
- Cameron is, now, taking this more seriously. He has been trying to build his own alliance of reformers and called a group of them to sit round his Cabinet table last year, but little came of it. He has also appointed a No 10 official to handle public appointments, and the selection of the writer William Shawcross to run the Charities Commission is a declaration of intent. But Labour spent more than a decade placing its supporters in quangos and tweaking charity laws, while Tories tend not to think of politics in this way.[4]
Nelson's comment was put to Shawcross in an interview with Third Sector magazine:
- Shawcross elects not to get drawn in. "Fraser Nelson’s a very good journalist. It was a very interesting article. What else can I say?" Does he agree with its analysis about charities’ anti-government stance? "I don’t know yet. But I think there is a very interesting discussion to be had about the way charities relate to government, and are increasingly dependent on governments of left, right and centre.[5]
External resources
- William Shawcross Curriculum vitae
- Vibeka Mair, Shawcross 'too outspoken' to be Commission chair, MPs worry, civilsociety.couk, 5 September 2012.
- Marko Attila Hoare, Alan Mendoza’s Henry Jackson Society and William Shawcross’s Charity Commission, 13 November 2012.
Affiliations
- Article 19 - Chairman
- RESPONSE - Chairman
- International Crisis Group - Board member since 1995, and member of Executive Committee since 2000.
- High Commissioner for Refugees - Member of the Informal Advisory Group, 1995-2000.
- Disasters Emergency Committee - Member of Council since 1997.
Connections
- Hartley Shawcross - Father
- Ellie Shawcross - Daughter
Notes
- ↑ Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail, 14 September 2005.
- ↑ Stephen Cook, Is William Shawcross the right person for the commission job?, Third Sector, 30 August 2012, accessed 31 August 2012
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE, Public Administration Committee, House of Commons, 5 September 2012.
- ↑ Fraser Nelson, Gordon Brown’s secret army could defeat the Coalition’s welfare and education reforms, Telegraph, 25 October 2012.
- ↑ Stephen Cook, Interview: William Shawcross, Third Sector, 5 November 2012.
