Why wasn’t Coulson properly vetted?

‘Have you ever had an affair? Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence? Tell me about this phone-hacking stuff I’ve been reading about in the papers: that happened on your watch didn’t it? Three questions that would have been put to Andy Coulson in the first five minutes of an interview to vet him for the top level of security clearance that is normally a pre-requisite for people in his position on the No.10 staff. In Mr Coulson’s case, however, those questions were never asked because someone decided that this Government’s Director of Communications didn’t need to be bothered with proper vetting at all.

Unlike his predecessors, or indeed his deputy, the Prime Minister’s main consigliere didn’t have to undergo the security checks that would permit him to see the most sensitive and significant intelligence material produced by the Security Services, the police or other agencies. Apparently his advice didn’t need to be informed by such material, even though I assume he’d be expected to communicate on behalf of the government in the event of a terrorist attack, a Wikileaks-style security breach or even a war.

Frankly, a bit like the notion that hacking was the preserve of a lone, rogue reporter, it just doesn’t wash.

I say this as someone who was subject to the level of security checks that Andy Coulson should have undergone. As a special adviser at the Northern Ireland office in the early 2000s I underwent what used to be called positive vetting and now has the equally Orwellian title of Developed Vetting (DV).

Getting ‘DV’d’ involves a pretty intrusive interview with, in my case at least, a humourless investigator armed with a battery of cringe-inducing questions. They want to know about your sexuality, your family background and your friends, politics and proclivities, finances and failings. They want to find out if you’ve got something to hide and just how hard you’ll try to do so. They’re quite properly looking to see if you’re vulnerable to blackmail and might be pressured to reveal what you could soon know, but they’re also looking to see if you’re a liar and unworthy of their trust.  I’m sure it’s not a flawless system, and really good fibbers might slip through the net, but your answers are cross-referenced by interviews with people who’ve known you through your life and I‘d bet most people’s secrets are winkled out and weighed.

I have little doubt that such an investigation would have posed serious questions for the Civil Service that was being asked to take Andy Coulson into their confidence, as the headlines in The Guardian and the New York Times should have done for the Prime Minister.

Yet more important than the question of what a DV check might have revealed, and how it might have prevented his appointment, is the issue of by whom, and why, it was decided he needn’t be subject to the process?

What was so special about the former News of the World editor, confidant of Rebekah Brooks and friend of Rupert Murdoch that meant he should either be allowed to see top secret material without being vetted or that his advice should be taken seriously without him being privy to those secrets? What use an adviser who doesn’t know the full facts of the issues he’s advising on?

Currently there is a lack of clarity surrounding vetting procedures.  Such crucial decisions, that are open to being swayed by personalities, shouldn’t be made at the whim of politicians or senior civil servants, there needs to be a proper process put in place, ensuring senior advisers pass through a standard procedure upon appointments.

Although sadly, that clarity would come too late for this debacle.  In truth there can surely be no secret as to the reason for the special treatment Andy Coulson received.  We can all guess why he was given a free pass, even if we don’t know who ultimately sanctioned it. Coulson was the coalition’s link man with the Murdochs, a human guarantor of good relations and better headlines, and the Prime Minister wouldn’t have wanted something so trivial as a proper vetting procedure to screw that up. Even in his pre-Lynton Crosby phase, the Prime Minister understood that such niceties were mere barnacles to scraped off the boat. Reputations don’t come clean quite so easily.

Owen Smith is Shadow Secretary of State for Wales