Democracy in action

Oh boy, talk about a blood bath…  As if the temperature in Committee Room 15 wasn’t high enough, yesterday’s meeting between the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and interested parties in the BDUK fiasco generated a good deal more heat than light.  The Committee Chairwoman, Margaret Hodge, was her usual combative self but the other members of the PAC were equally belligerent in their interrogation of the apparent villains in the affair – BT and the civil servants.  The questioning of BT was particularly aggressive, poor old Sean Williams (Group Director Strategy, Policy and Portfolio) having to retain his sangfroid while BT was accused by Malcolm Corbett of acting towards broadband competitors like a “vampire death squid, lurking in the depths, waiting to gobble them up and destroy them. 

Predictably, Williams dismissed most of the flak as unfounded allegations but I was massively impressed with his ability to remain cool and collected under intense questioning.  OK, many of his responses may have amounted to ‘I see no ships’ but he never once ducked against any of the allegations levelled against BT, some justified, others less so. 

As regards DCMS, the meeting recorded a big vote of confidence in Maria Miller, who Nicholas James, (Chief Executive, UK Broadband) described as genuinely keen to foster more competitive outcomes in the BDUK process. The same could not be said for the two civil servants ‘on trial’ - Sir Jonathan Stephens (Permanent Secretary) and Jon Zeff (Senior DCMS Officer), who were accused by Hodge of working in a parallel universe. Their mauling by the committee was relentless but it did at least produce one credible action point: that BT’s planned speed and coverage maps for each local authority contract area should be published – not clear by whom – allowing potential suppliers to address the residual 10% of homes. 

Other than that, the main value of the meeting was in seeing the ‘bad guys’ being hauled over the coals.  Anyone else who relishes seeing them receive a ‘damned good thrashing’ should exercise their democratic rights here.  Enjoy!