I think that if POL were serious about culture change then SPM board representation would be a good thing. They can act as the conscience of the board in this area, if POL are doing what they say they are doing then they can be a good check. Given that the shareholder representatives have acted as neutral to negative parties on this issue, and the current NED seems to be behaving the same way, then someone needs to hold the exec to account, and successive chairs have failed to do so.
…and, IMHO, that identifies the fundamental cum core issue throughout this whole saga. The chosen board and executive simply weren’t ‘up to it’ when it came to problem recognition, and when the heat got turned-up, they got caught in a legally-based maelstrom/minefield when, with hindsight, they would have been best advised to simply own-up and take the medicine…can you imagine what this career-destroying admission would have done for them!
As to ‘good ideas’ around these things e.g. installing the PM NEDs, the world is littered with things which were considered ‘good ideas at the time’, which failed, often in spectacular fashion e.g. in the financial world, the PPI scandal is a great example. Can you imagine the blurb, which promoted these ‘insurance products’ as having meaningful benefits to punters, and great profit generators for the selling business. Yet, nobody stopped to think there’s no such thing as ‘free profit’.
We could spend a very long time in the pub taking about these issues…
