Snow job

Of course, it depends on who you ask but the objective view is that former senior auditor Anthony Snow did an effective number on the Public Accounts Committee during this morning’s questioning.

The ex-WAO guy had clearly wrong-footed the committee by firstly turning up and then further unsettled matters by agreeing to answer questions. And whilst it’s acknowledged that few of the members have ever demonstrated the same tenacity as Leanne Wood in pursuing Mr Snow, or rather the cash contained in his separation deal, the questioning was non-aggressive to the point of meekness.

In the end, the best they could do was to attempt to elicit an acknowledgement from the smiling ex-chief operating officer that going on a training course a few months prior to leaving his post might have been inappropriate. However, his response to this point, as with others, was a definitive statement that amounted to an invitation to the members to go take a flying fiscal projection.

Whatever the PAC had originally intended from this “showcase” event, the view among observers is that what they managed to do was highlight their own inadequacies rather than those of third parties.