STANDARDS BEARER

After five years chairing the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Lord Evans speaks to Tevye Markson about the challenges of fostering ethical integrity in government

hen former MI5 director general Jonathan Evans was appointed chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2018, his intention was to help “continue the strong tradition of high public standards” in the UK, he tells CSW.

What he didn’t expect was to be thrust into a ringside seat at one of the most tumultuous periods for public standards in the modern era.

After the 1990s cash-forquestions affair, which triggered the creation of the standards committee, and the parliamentary expenses scandal in the late

2000s, ethical standards in public life dropped off newspaper front pages. Then, shortly after Lord Evans joined the committee, a string of crises arrived all at once: Greensill, the Owen Paterson affair and Partygate. The former spymaster’s new role evolved into something that was rather different from what he had anticipated.

“I thought it would be more like a select committee role where you are [gathering] evidence [and] issuing reports,” Evans says. “But in the period from 2020 through to this time last year, public standards became a big public media issue.”

One might think he was well prepared for the challenge. A career security service officer who worked at MI5 for more than three decades, Evans spearheaded attempts to bring transparency to the service. Leading one of Britain’s most opaque public services into an era of increased openness required careful navigation of questionable past behaviours by MI5, and brought with it increased media scrutiny – skills Evans found necessary to revisit in his committee role.

“I certainly seemed to spend a lot of time talking to media, appearing on the Today programme, the World at One and so on,” Evans says. “Public standards became a very big public story, and therefore we felt, as a committee, that we needed to make our voice heard. I don’t think I was anticipating that that would be what was involved in this role at the time.”

Evans’ five-year term ended in October. Despite the succession of scandals that marked the middle of his chairmanship, he believes a “slight recalibration” in ethical standards has taken place in the last 12 months. So, why does he think things got so choppy

“Expressing concerns without looking as though we’re joining in some sort of political fight is a tricky line to tread”