Tobacco control: how ASH's "loss" is government's "gain"
Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 11:08 Further evidence of collusion between ASH and government at a time when the Coalition was still consulting on plain packaging.
Last week I published a photo featuring public health minister Jane Ellison alongside Andrew Black, tobacco programme manager at the Department of Health, and Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH. Ellison had tweeted the picture with the words:
Delighted that Luther L Terry award for Exemplary Leadership in Tobacco Control awarded to dedicated @DHgovuk team
I suggested, somewhat frivolously, that Ellison had effectively credited Arnott with being part of the "dedicated" Department of Health team.
What I hadn't spotted was that the award nominations "were reviewed by an international selection committee of previous Luther L Terry Award winners" including … Deborah Arnott.
In other words, Arnott was one of the judges.
Anyway I've just seen an interesting exchange of emails acquired via Freedom of Information.
On July 29, 2014 someone from ASH (guess who?) wrote to Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England:
Dear Kevin,
I am very pleased to hear that xxxx has been appointed Tobacco Control Programme Lead at PHE. Since secondment to PHE the feedback I've been getting about PHE's enhanced tobacco work has been without exception extremely positive at local, regional and national level. Our loss is your gain – xxxx already made a significant difference and now you have a much-strengthened tobacco team in place I am sure PHE's work on tobacco will go from strength to strength.
As you know ASH is committed to supporting effective implementation of the Tobacco Control Plan of England and will continue to do all we can to support PHE in its work. Since xxxx joined PHE you and I have not met regularly in the way we used to and the Corporate Programme Board which I sat on had been disbanded too. Now that xxxx's move is confirmed I think it might be helpful if we could start meeting again every three months, and if that's acceptable to you perhaps we can get some dates in the diary.
Best wishes,
Within two hours Fenton replied:
Hi,
I completely agree that we should ensure that we continue meeting quarterly. My assistant will lock in the times for us.
Once again, thank you so much for your help with seconding xxxx to us at a very critical and challenging time earlier this year [my italics]. We are delighted that xxxx has now joined us formally, and we recognise that his appointment will facilitate continued strong links between our organisations.
With the very best wishes,
Kevin
Now it's no secret that Martin Dockrell, former director of research and policy at ASH, moved to Public Health England last year but I'd no idea he'd been "seconded" by ASH to PHE several months earlier.
I assumed the job had been advertised, that he'd applied and been appointed following the standard selection procedure. That's how public sector jobs are filled, isn't it?
Who paid his wages while he was on secondment? Was the job at PHE advertised or was it created specially for him? Was anyone else interviewed for the role?
To put this in perspective, a taxpayer-funded organisation dedicated to further tobacco control measures (plain packaging, for example) seconded one of its most senior employees to a government body "at a very critical and challenging time" (ie while that body was lobbying government on, er, plain packaging).
He is now employed by that government body whose director of health and wellbeing agreed without quibble, when requested, to meet the CEO of ASH every three months.
Who's calling the shots here? If ASH is not running PHE's tobacco control programme then it's hugely influential.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at those quarterly meetings. Do you think they keep minutes?
As for the Department of Health, who needs elected politicians when you've got unelected tobacco control campaigners dictating policy? If you play your cards right they may even nominate and vote for you to receive an international award.
See also: Minister's "dedicated DH team" includes CEO of ASH
Reader Comments (4)
This is straightforward collusion. It follows the patterns of racketeering. This makes a mockery of democratic governance and needs to be broadly exposed for what it is--corruption.
Wow what a series of revealations!
Person receives an international award from the American Cancer Society selected by a committee of ex-award winners, exactly as laid out in the rules for the award - see: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/documents/document/acspc-042973.pdf
Person is seconded from an NGO set up by doctors and dedicated to improving health to a Government organisation dedicated to improving health, and later gets a job there. And when former politicians go and work for the tobacco industry, did you write a blog about that too? What about when politicians with links to the tobacco industry vote against tobacco control issues, is that collusion (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/smoking-cars-bill-tories-who-3147283)?
Director of leading Government Health agency meets regularly with director of leading NGO dedicated to improving health. Whatever next?
Department of Health has 'unelected' civil servants working in it - crikey, just like every other department of government. In fact I can't recall there ever being elected civil servants or government officials - a system that seems to have worked for a couple of hundred years or more in the UK.
Policy is dictated by tobacco control campaigners?? So the vote in Parliament by 367-113 in favour of plain packaging (and similarly for other tobacco control policies) was not an expression of the democratic process by elected representatives? Where is the dictation?
So stop pissing about posting this stuff on your blog and get the lawyers started in the high court then. There's no point in moaning about it anymore - get a bloody media campaign started to explose this corruption of democracy and incestuous political process.
What an interesting riposte from your healthist guest.
Healthists like all socialists /fascists (is there a practical difference?) believe that the end justifies any means and those who are not for them are against them.
This apparently excuses all kinds of unpleasantness and dishonesty, in their eyes at least.
The comment is superficially coherent but the pen name gives the author away. No sane, rational reasonable human being uses a slogan as a pseudonym.
You are right to point out that there is something odd about the relationship between the government and ASH. After all, MPs vote based on the evidence placed before them and in the case of plain packs, there is cause for concern about the objectivity of that evidence.