How unsackable Sir John Bourn sealed his fate
Extract from the article in the Telegraph:
"The man who was virtually impossible to sack finally agreed to retire yesterday, after a furore over the six-figure taxpayer-funded expenses bill he racked up travelling the world, often with his wife.
Sir John Bourn, the Government's spending watchdog, spent £365,000 in travel expenses and £27,000 in restaurant bill in just three years as head of the National Audit Office (NAO).
The auditor general is currently one of the few officials who cannot be sacked by the Government and can only be dismissed after votes in both houses of Parliament. However, following pressure from MPs, Sir John announced yesterday that he would step down in January.
He still faces the prospect of an embarrassing public showdown next week with MPs, who were drawing up plans for improving the "governance" of the NAO following the expenses scandal.
His six-figure expenses bill is particularly embarrassing for the Government as Sir John was also recruited in 2006 to a new position to police the ministerial code of conduct, which sets out standards of behaviour for ministers. Downing Street said yesterday he would also step down from this role when he retires."
I already had a low opinion of Sir John Bourn. - Over 2 years ago I wrote to Edward Leigh MP, who was chair of the Public Accounts Committee, explaining that obesity and the host of obesity-related illnesses needed a change of thinking. - Here is part of what I wrote to him:
My letter was passed on to the National Audit Office for their comments on the points I raised in my letter.
The eventual outcome was that I was sent a copy of "Tackling Obesity in England", a publication dated February 2001 and priced, according to its cover, at £11! - It is described as a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General - i.e. Sir John Bourn - and the claim is made therein that the National Audit Office saves the taxpayer millions of pounds every year...(o: - Not on the matter of obesity, it doesn't, Sir John!!! - When you are completely wrong in your basic assumptions, what follows from them is not going to be the best way forward...
In the Introduction it says: "While some people are more genetically susceptible than others, the direct cause of obesity in any individual is always an excess intake over energy expenditure." - This is a categorically untrue statement. - The most severe obesity is caused by reckless prescribing of drugs that result in sensitivity to salt, sodium retention and water retention, and all obesity is worsened by following the dieting advice of the health professionals who fraudulently claim that eating fewer calories than the body requires results in obesity reduction. - It doesn't; it results in weight gain, because of increased fluid retention.
If he or Edward Leigh had bothered to read my letter and give serious consideration to what it said, they could have started to turn round the obesity crisis by now, and saved a lot of suffering by individuals, and saved a lot of taxpayers' money too.