Blondel Cluff has resigned as chair of the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) after two and a half years.
Earlier this week, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced that the culture secretary had appointed Paul Sweeney as interim chair of the charity “without competition”.
DCMS told Civil Society that Lucy Fraser “recently accepted the resignation of Blondel Cluff from her role” as NLCF’s chair, adding that “the process for recruiting a permanent chair will be announced in due course”.
Cluff was appointed in February 2021 on a contract running to February 2025. Neither DCMS nor NLCF could confirm why she resigned early.
Interim chair
DCMS said that Sweeney was appointed for 12 months from 1 August 2023 “or until a substantive chair is appointed, whichever is sooner”.
Sweeney previously worked in the voluntary, community and public sectors in Northern Ireland. He was director of the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust for seven years before initially joining the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) on secondment in 1994.
There, he held several positions such as deputy permanent secretary in the Department for Regional Development and deputy permanent secretary in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister.
Since his retirement from the NICS in 2017, he has been a trustee at several not-for-profit organisations, including NLCF’s Northern Ireland funding committee.
‘Exceptional appointment without competition’
DCMS said Sweeney’s appointment was made under the Governance Code “as an exceptional appointment without competition, following consultation with the commissioner for public appointments”.
“The Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared; this is defined as holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Paul Sweeney has not declared any significant political activity,” it said.
A DCMS spokesperson said: “The secretary of state recently accepted the resignation of Blondel Cluff from her role as chair of the National Lottery Community Fund.
“Paul Sweeney has been appointed by the secretary of state as interim chair. The process for recruiting a permanent chair will be announced in due course.”
Review into NLCF’s recruitment process
Last year, commissioner for public appointments William Shawcross carried out a review of NLCF’s recruitment process after leaked emails suggested that the Conservative Party Headquarters had sought to encourage more donors to apply for roles.
According to the emails, seen by the Times, officials wanted Mohamed Amersi, a millionaire who had donated £525,000 to the Conservative Party since 2018, to be considered for the role of chair.
Amersi reached the final round of the recruitment process before Cluff, an academic and lawyer married to Algy Cluff, who was editor of the Spectator when Boris Johnson wrote for the paper, was appointed.
In his report, Shawcross concluded that NLCF’s appointment process “was made according to the published criteria for the role” and met the requirements of the code’s principles of fairness and merit.
“As is their right under the code, ministers provided input into which candidates were shortlisted for interview. The commissioner is satisfied the [advisory assessment panel] had no objection to this and the process which determined which candidates were shortlisted for interview and appointment was in line with the code,” he wrote.
He added that “the competition did not meet the code’s ambition on timeliness”.
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