William Shawcross

William Shawcross is a British journalist. He was named by the Cabinet Office as the proposed chair of the Charity Commission in August 2012.

At a hearing of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee to examine his appointment, the chair Bernard Jenkin noted:

One or two of us have to put some interests on the record, however peripheral they may be. You are a Director and Trustee of the Henry Jackson SocietyThe Henry Jackson Society provides the Secretariat for the All- Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security, of which I am Chairman. I also published a pamphlet in co-operation with the Henry Jackson Society a couple of years ago.

Robert Halfon stated: "I should declare that I was a founding patron of the Henry Jackson Society when it was first set up and I am fairly involved with the organisation."

A third committee member, Paul Flynn added: I think perhaps I had better say that the Henry Jackson Society organised a meeting at which I was a prime speaker, to my astonishment.

Shawcross stated during proceedings:

Obviously I would wish to resign all my memberships of the Henry Jackson Society and other charities with which I am involved. I think the Henry Jackson Society is a great society and I am very pleased that they had you come to speak, Mr Flynn. Henry Jackson himself was a great American senator who stood not just for right‑wing views but for freedom and liberty everywhere. That is what the society stands for now. I would do everything necessary and speak to the chief executive of the Charity Commission to make sure I was seen to be always acting in an independent manner.

In an October 2012 article on Labour 'fifth columnists' in the charitable sector, Fraser Nelson, wrote:

Cameron is, now, taking this more seriously. He has been trying to build his own alliance of reformers and called a group of them to sit round his Cabinet table last year, but little came of it. He has also appointed a No 10 official to handle public appointments, and the selection of the writer William Shawcross to run the Charities Commission is a declaration of intent. But Labour spent more than a decade placing its supporters in quangos and tweaking charity laws, while Tories tend not to think of politics in this way.

Nelson's comment was put to Shawcross in an interview with Third Sector magazine:

Shawcross elects not to get drawn in. "Fraser Nelson’s a very good journalist. It was a very interesting article. What else can I say?" Does he agree with its analysis about charities’ anti-government stance? "I don’t know yet. But I think there is a very interesting discussion to be had about the way charities relate to government, and are increasingly dependent on governments of left, right and centre.

External resources

• William Shawcross Curriculum vitae
• Vibeka Mair, Shawcross 'too outspoken' to be Commission chair, MPs worry, civilsociety.couk, 5 September 2012.
• Marko Attila Hoare, Alan Mendoza’s Henry Jackson Society and William Shawcross’s Charity Commission, 13 November 2012.

Affiliations

• Article 19 - Chairman
• RESPONSE - Chairman
• International Crisis Group - Board member since 1995, and member of Executive Committee since 2000.
• High Commissioner for Refugees - Member of the Informal Advisory Group, 1995-2000.
• Disasters Emergency Committee - Member of Council since 1997.

Connections

• Hartley Shawcross - Father
• Ellie Shawcross - Daughter