Culture secretary Lisa Nandy breached the governance code on public appointments in failing to declare that David Kogan had donated to her leadership campaign, the commissioner for public appointments has found.
Sir William Shawcross’s inquiry into the appointment of Kogan as the chair of the new Independent Football Regulator also found a breach by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in failing to disclose Kogan's political activity when he was announced as the government’s preferred candidate.
Shawcross found three breaches of the code in total, the other being that a potential conflict of interest was not discussed with Kogan at the interview for the role – although he did not attribute blame to any party for this breach.
The report made no finding on Kogan’s suitability for the role of chair of the IFR.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy announced in April that Kogan was the government’s preferred choice for the role, with his appointment then approved by MPs in May. However, at the pre-appointment hearing, he notified the MPs that he had made “very small” donations to Nandy and Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership campaigns in 2020. In June, Shawcross announced a “full inquiry” into the appointment. The department subsequently confirmed Kogan as chair last month, in advance of Shawcross finishing his inquiry.
Kogan made donations totalling £2,900 to Nandy's leadership campaign. In his report, published yesterday afternoon, Shawcross said he accepted that Nandy "did not recall or know about these donations" during the appointment campaign, but said she she should have carried out fuller checks and “taken any necessary consequential action” before selecting him as the government’s preferred candidate. He said Nandy “unknowingly” breached the third principle of the code: "integrity".
In a letter to Starmer, following the report’s publication, Nandy said: “I deeply regret this error. I appreciate the perception it could create, but it was not deliberate and I apologise for it.”
Responding, the prime minister said he accepted Nandy’s assurance that there was no intentional or deliberate action on her part to undermine the expectations set out in the code.
“I know you to be a person of integrity and on the basis of your letter, it is clear you have acted in good faith,” he said.
Starmer added: “Nonetheless, the process followed was not entirely up to the standard expected and I welcome your department's willingness to cooperate with the commissioner and the Cabinet Office to learn lessons and to improve the guidance on handling conflicts of interests.”
Starmer also noted that the report “in no way casts any doubt on the suitability” of Kogan for the IFR chair role, adding that it is “important now that the government gets on with delivering our manifesto commitment to make Britain the best place in the world to be a football fan”.
On the department’s failure to disclose Kogan’s political activity, Shawcross found it may have led members of the public to assume, inaccurately, that Kogan was not politically active. Shawcross said the department’s rectification of the error "does not eliminate the breach" and noted that it took one week for the department to rectify the error.
Shawcross also found that the appointment process had “a number of unsatisfactory features and did not accord with best practice”.
He said the decision to reinstate Kogan after he had withdrawn from the process in November 2024 and to then sift, interview and appoint that candidate "in short order" was "highly unusual" and could lead to “questions being raised legitimately about whether the process was fair and open”.
Shawcross also pointed out that the deadline was extended for Kogan but not for all candidates. To safeguard the code's "fairness" principle, he said the department "should usually accept all late applications or none".
The commissioner also questioned the department’s choice to keep the campaign open after deciding against selecting one of the three candidates originally found to be appointable, noting that the code says ministers "may choose not to appoint any of the candidates and re-run the competition".
Shawcross said he was not consulted on these unusual practices, and if he had been, his advice would have been “not to proceed in this way”. He added that he accepted Kogan “was not aware” of these deviation from best practice.
In a “next steps and recommendations” section at the end of the report, Shawcross said “officials in the Cabinet Office, together with key stakeholders – including departmental officials and the commissioner – should work together to agree steps to avoid a similar situation arising in the future”.
He said these reforms could include:
- Clarifying advice on declarations and handling of conflicts of interest and, separately, on disclosure of political activity
- Ensuring that the transparency provisions are emphasised to departmental teams
- Encouraging departments to engage with the commissioner for public appointments early in the process on exceptional cases or any potential compliance issues.
Shawcross added that “ministers are reminded of their duties to declare and resolve any interests and relationships which they have with a candidate participating in a campaign regulated by the governance code”.