BBC Chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after an independent report found he had breached public appointment rules by not disclosing a potential conflict of interest in his role in securing a $1 million loan for the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, reports CNBC.
His exit comes at a time of heightened political scrutiny of the British public broadcaster. A high-profile row with highly paid presenter Gary Lineker over neutrality dominated headlines in Britain last month.
Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker who became BBC chairman in 2021, had been under pressure since February when a committee of lawmakers said he had made “significant errors of judgement” in failing to declare his involvement in the loan.
Sharp said he had agreed to stay on until the end of June to give the government time to find a successor to lead the broadcaster, funded by a license fee paid by TV-watching households.
Specifically, it looked at whether Sharp fully disclosed details of his role in facilitating an 800,000 pound ($1 million) loan for Johnson before he was named chairman.
The report found that, while he had breached the government’s code for public appointments, that breach did not necessarily invalidate his appointment. Sharp said he believed the breach had been “inadvertent and not material”.
But he also said staying until the end of his four-year term would be a distraction from the broadcaster’s “good work”.
The report mentions Johnson’s Downing Street office as having recommended Sharp as “a strong candidate” for the role, which attracted 23 applications.
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