RHI smoke and the difference between a SPAD and a Minister

Claire Hanna was on Raidio Uladh /Radio Ulster just now and she made one very valid point: the wood-pellet scheme is creating a lot of smoke and it’s hard to see through it. However, the testimony yesterday by Dr Andrew McCormick  to the Public Accounts Committee has provided flares,  helping us see what direction the wrong-doing took.

That said, I found some of Dr McCormick’s  testimony frustrating. He says he believes that Dr Andrew Crawford, Special Adviser (SPAD) at the time to Arlene Foster, pushed to have the RHI scheme/scam kept open at a point when it should have been closed down, and that in so doing he left the door open to an influx of people to capitalize on the scheme. The frustrating part is that Dr McCormick says he has no proof for this but had reason to believe it.

Now I wasn’t watching this interrogation from start to finish, but did any of the clever dicks around the table think of asking him why, in the absence of any proof, he believed this?

He was also asked at a later time if he thought Arlene Foster had at any time done anything wrong. Enda McClafferty, the BBC reporter filling in for Nolan this morning, has just said (twice) that Dr McCormick said twice that she had not. I didn’t hear the clip that way. To me it sounded as if there was a pregnant pause after the question was asked, then after about a five-second delay, Dr McCormick made with a rather limp “No”. Did any clever dick around the table think of asking him why he believed what he did? After all, if a key adviser is pushing for something as financially monstrous as the RHI scheme/scam, isn’t it likely that the adviser’s boss would know about it? But as far as I know, all the clever dicks cleverly didn’t ask that question.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is looking and sounding more and more like the Watergate hearings in Washington back in the 1970s. Every night, another gob-smacking revelation emerged on the nightly TV report. What we saw was people breaking cover á la Jonathan Bell,  and the man at the centre of the web, Dick Nixon, hanging out trusted adviser after trusted adviser until there were none left, and then the investigators came for him, and got him.

By now, few people are unaware that this RHI scheme/scam was wildly expensive. Few people are unaware that over a two-month period, when some tried to close it down and others resisted, there was a surge in applications to the scheme/scam. Simon Hamilton has promised us a list next Wednesday (got a very slow typist, Simon?) of those who were in the scheme, when they joined it and how much money they got. That should help.

At the moment the SPADS are the focus of attention. One of them- John Robinson, SPAD to Simon Hamilton – has said he’ll step aside from further involvement in the RHI scheme/scam, since it emerged that he said he had no family connection with people taking up the scheme, when in fact his father-in-law was in the scheme. Since he’s obviously been caught out misleading the public (notice how I’m not saying he lied?), wouldn’t it be more logical that he step aside from all SPAD work – or better still, was dismissed? I seem to remember a time when unionists were very upset at the idea of a not-sufficiently moral person occupying a SPAD position. Have their standards declined?

As I see it, there’s a serious misperception about the role of SPADs. They are highly-paid advisers. They advise (the clue is in the name) the Ministers, and the Ministers take or don’t take their advice, and act. So clearly if the Minister is getting bad advice, those giving it are either dumb or devious or both, and should be dismissed forthwith. Equally clearly, responsibility for action taken lies four-square with the Minister in question. S/he hires the well-paid SPAD, so if the SPAD is a busted flush, it says something about the judgement of the Minister. But even more important, the buck stops with the Minister. They are Numero Uno. They’ll get the accolades if they make wise decisions, they’ll get the kickings if their decisions stink. But they are the Boss, the SPAD is the underling. So can we have an end to this talk of SPADs being responsible for this or that? The person who is responsible in each and every case is the Minister. The buck, to coin a phrase, stops there.

Hello, Jonathan Bell. Hello, Arlene Foster.