It’s all a matter of judgement…
It was predictable for those of us with a few grey hairs that the woke agenda would eventually be checked by a good old dose of common sense, but I will admit that it has taken longer than I had expected for there to be a major news story to make people sit up and think.
It will come to be known as the Alison Rose affair and I predict that it will lead to a re-think of many practices that are getting out of hand across our society.
I will not add to the column centimetres on what happened, save to say that, in my view, there was a terrible failing in judgment, both personally and institutionally. The half-baked attempt by the Board to defend the indefensible has now led to the whole Board and the Bank’s reputation being damaged, possibly irreversibly.
With better judgement the Board should have sent her on her way and not waited for the court of public opinion – rightly expressed by government in this instance – to say that she should go. All of the board members are tainted in my view; one of them I note is Chair of a listed property company!
The relevance of this should not be lost on Property Chronicle readers who are following the shenanigans at RICS, where the Anne Gray affair still bubbles along, and we await some smoke from Great George Street. The parallels are painfully obvious. Many believe that Ms. Gray has acted in a manner that is not becoming of a President of a global professional members organisation and, certainly in my view, brings her reputation and that of the RICS into disrepute. Rumour is that government are less than impressed and have told the RICS so.
There, however, the uncanny resemblance seems to end. There have been no resignations, nor pronouncements from General Council. RICS will presumably hide behind some legalese in case Dame Janet is lining up to take action for unfair dismissal. However, the silence is far from golden. Chartered Surveyors are entitled to a lot more, and the longer the silence lasts, the more the rumblings of discontent from members like me will go on.
As I have written previously, either Ms. Gray had Council approval for her actions, in the form in which she sent it, or she did not. If she did then Council should stand up and support her. If she did not, which is my bet, then Council should offer the opportunity to do the right thing. If she had their support in principle, it is opaque, but the contents of the letter show such poor judgement in my view that the result is still the same; she needs to go.
The longer she holds on the worse it is going to be for everyone. If I was a member of Council, I would not be at all happy to have my reputation tainted in this way, so I am surprised that the silence is still deafening. Do they really think that it is going away if they put their heads in the sand? The only conclusion that I can draw is that General Council is rather weak, for it cannot decide which side of the fence to fall. That is not good enough.
The fact that Ms. Gray has performed so poorly should also raise questions about the process by which Presidents are elected, and whether there should be a wholesale review of that. I would advise it.
All of this is most unfortunate and itself bears an uncanny resemblance to the mess that led to the Levitt review. Surely, we cannot go there again, but with no news to work on it would not be unreasonable for someone to call for it. If it helps, I do so here.
What is needed is some good old-fashioned judgement to steady the ship. One does not sail into stormy waters without a good captain, nor a good a ship. We are most certainly in those waters now, and if the captain cannot see the waves, then someone should bring a motion of no confidence. If Council don’t do it themselves, they will be embarrassed to find many who might do so, and they will be caught up in that. The moment of their reputations remaining intact is fast disappearing.
The Alison Rose affair will be responsible for a lot of societal change; none the least, close to home in Great George Street.
