David Knowles St George's Non-Executive And Director of Leadership Development Kings Fund London
David Knowles was at the time he gave evidence against me at my internal disciplinary hearing the non-executive Deputy Chairman of the Board and in my view very worryingly the Director of Leadership at the Kings Fund with a responsibility for developing the NHS leaders of the future. At the internal hearing he expressed the view that he had concerns about my performance as Director of Finance. He said that he had no doubts about my professional or technical competence, but that he felt that I did not take personal responsibility for the implications and consequences of financial decisions and that consequently I was not perceived as being a supportive or positive leader. In giving his evidence to the hearing Mr Knowles was not able to give one specific example of where there had been a failure on my part to take responsibility for something I should have done and didn’t. Indeed under questioning Mr Knowles agreed that he had never ever raised with me any problems at all as to my performance as finance director, not by letter, e-mail or by requesting a meeting with me. He further agreed that the only people he had communicated with in regard to problems he perceived with my performance were the Chief Executive and the Chairman. I think this is particularly unfair taken in the light of the e-mail that I sent to all the non-executive directors on the 14th December 2001 which shows quite clearly that I had arranged to make my self accessible at any time to discuss the financial position of the trust and that David Knowles had asked for a meeting to take place on the 21st January 2002, approximately six months before I was asked to resign my position as Director of Finance. If Mr Knowles had serious problems with me as Finance Director surely here was an opportunity to raise them with me at this meeting, but in fact Mr Knowles did not raise any criticism of my performance at this meeting despite the fact I had invited all the non-executives to let me know if there were any particular issues that they wanted covered.
The only other issue that David Knowles raised during the internal hearing was that the External Auditor Simon Sharp, a partner in the firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers had asked to have a meeting with the non-executive directors on the 24th July. He claimed that the purpose of the meeting was for Simon Sharp to raise concerns about my performance as finance director and he stated that Simon Sharp said at that meeting, that he had evidence that I was in the habit of being very critical of the NHS financial regime and the situation that existed at St George’s. Simon Sharp was not called as a witness during the course of my internal disciplinary hearing, but submitted two letters for consideration. The first of these letters was dated 5th August and confirmed that Mr Knowles had been quite wrong to assert that the meeting on the 24th July had been called specifically to raise issues about my performance as Finance Director. The letter clearly states, “The reasons for both these meetings was to discuss the concerns that we have regarding the Trust’s financial standing in 2002/03 and beyond, together with the effectiveness of the steps that are currently being taken by staff within the Trust to address the challenging issues that arise from the situation”. What the letter went on to say was, “In connection with these issues we also raised a concern that the robust and well aired views held by the Trust’s Director of Finance on the financial regime within the NHS might adversely impact on:
1).The trusts relationships with its partners in the local health economy;
2).Officers and staff within the Trust charged with seeking to deliver the Cost Improvement Programme.
Simon Sharp also stated in his letter that, “we agreed that we had no concerns regarding the technical competencies of the Director of Finance”. My “well aired” view which Simon Sharp refers to, is the fact that I pointed out to the Board at the special meeting of the St George’s Board held on the 5th June 2002 and to Simon Sharp at the meeting we had on the 2nd July 2002, that because of the flaws in the calculation of the Healthcare Resource Group published data, St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust is being given an annual cost reduction target that was not justified and could not reasonably be achieved and that as a consequence the Trust was being put in a position where it would likely breach the duty to balance its financial books as required by the Statutory Breakeven Duty (Section 10 (1) of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990), Health Service Circular 1999/146 providing comprehensive guidance on the duty.
It is alarming to think that the Director of Leadership at the Kings Fund should
take the view that for telling the truth about the financial position of the
Trust as Finance Director I should be subject to disciplinary action.
The
fact that the advice I gave in July 2002 was correct is born out in the
“Financial Report for the period ending 31st January 2003”, which
was presented by the Acting Director of Finance to the Trust Board at their
meeting held on the 18th March 2003 and which clearly shows that the
Trusts financial position had continued to deteriorate month by month and that
the Trust only managed to break even at the end of the financial year because of
the use it made of non-recurring funds, which were intended to be spent on vital
other needs like the replacement of medical equipment and plant. It was also
reported that less than half of the targeted Cost Reduction Programme was
likely to be achieved by the year end precisely as I predicted.
In fact because of the failure to invest in plant replacement St George's had to
close a number of operating theatres during the July/August 2003 period because
of a failure of air conditioning plant.
The other issue that arose when I questioned David Knowles during the hearing about his evidence was that the Chairman refused to allow me to question him about an e-mail and a resignation letter that had been sent to me by John Clarke a former Trust non-executive director and Chairman of the Board’s Investment Committee, who had resigned from the Board some nine months earlier. In his e-mail , John Clarke indicated that he was shocked to hear of my suspension and was particularly disturbed to hear that the decision was linked to my management style as he had at all times found me to be a highly professional and co-operative executive. He had found nothing in my style that he had found unacceptable or even difficult. John Clarke further stated that he was not completely surprised that Catherine McLoughlin would act unfairly and that this coupled with remarks that David Knowles had made about the Executive Directors had made him believe that St George’s was about to slip into the position where it adopted some of the poor practices which once existed in the private sector. When I attempted to ask David Knowles about the issues raised in John Clarke’s e-mail and resignation letter , Catherine McLoughlin stated that it was a private matter between her and John Clarke and refused to allow me to put any questions in connection with the issues raised by John Clarke. I think this again shows unfair bias against me by the Chairman and demonstrates once again why she should have stepped down from the chair in order to have allowed me a fair hearing, but more importantly it prevented me from raising a series of questions that would have established, that far from being an honest and honourable witness David Knowles already had a track record of making unsubstantiated allegations against executive directors. The reason for believing that this could have been established was because after my suspension John Clarke telephoned me to say that in 2001, before he resigned from the Board, Catherine McLoughlin, Ian Hamilton and particularly David Knowles had been planning to dismiss another executive director from the Board other than myself. John Clarke’s view was that something must have happened for me to have changed places with that person and become the Executive Director that was to be dismissed. Given that I made the protected disclosure about cancelled operations towards the end of 2001, I believe that this is the reason why I became in 2002 the subject of a series of false allegations, made in order to dismiss me from my post. As soon as I asked David Knowles a question about what John Clarke had told me, Catherine McLoughlin stopped the line of questioning and refused to allow me to put any further questions on the matter. I think this further demonstrates that I have been dismissed on the basis of the protected disclosures that I have made. If this was not the case Miss McLoughlin would not have been so determined to prevent any questions being put to David Knowles on the issues raised by John Clarke, whose e-mail clearly shows that David Knowles unfair behaviour towards the non-executive directors had already become a factor in the resignation of John Clarke from the Board. When late in my employment hearing the KPMG management consultants report into the financial management of St George's was released, the notes of the interview that took place between KPMG and David Knowles on the 24th July 2002 were disclosed. This meeting took place just five days before I was asked to resign from my post as Finance Director and the notes report David Knowles as follows, "DK noted that the finance team was fairly large at St George's and although he did not see much of them , his main contacts were Ian Perkin and the audit team. He noted that he did not believe the team was conducive to delivery but there was nothing in the way of hard evidence to indicate this. He noted that Ian Perkin was competent in his role, and although he is not the easiest character to get on with, he is respected professionally. KPMG enquired if there had been any concerns raised at the audit committee. DK noted that there had been none". Just five days after David Knowles made this statement is his capacity of Chairman of the Trust's Audit Committee, that I was professionally competent, that was there was no evidence to support the contention that the finance team were not delivering and the Audit Committee had never had any concerns raised about either myself or my department, I was asked to resign from my post as Finance Director. When I refused to do this, I was subjected to a sham disciplinary hearing in which David Knowles supported the contention that there had been long standing concerns about my capabilities as Finance Director. I simply ask the question in the light of this, has David Knowles acted in this matter with any integrity and ask the obvious question that if he has not, is he a fit and proper person to be Director of the Kings Fund Leadership programme? I leave you to provide the answer.
As a post script I was told by my constituency MP Edward Davey that David Knowles had approached him in his capacity as a Lib/Dem activist in the Richmond constituency implying that Mr Davey should not be supporting me in my case. I am glad to report that Mr Davey took no notice of Mr Knowles comments.