Sir Simon McDonald said No 10 ‘wanted a scalp’ but removal of Robbins from Foreign Office felt ‘wrong’
On Friday the Cabinet Office released a template page from the summary document produced by UKSV after Mandelson’s vetting. The document would be used by a vetting officer to summarise their findings.
It lists three rankings for possible “overall concern”: low, medium and high. In the next box, there is a space for a vetting officer to list the outcome of the assessment with their “overall decision or recommendation”. Again, there are three options: clearance approved, clearance approved “with risk management” or clearance denied.
If it [the vetting process] did amount to failure then that fact, that ultimate conclusion would have to be conveyed to the political level, but the fact that it was not indicates to me that the fact was rather more complicated than No 10 would wish to present.
