Chronologically, the first email in which Veronica Wadley's name appears in this fat stack of correspondence obtained under Freedom of Information was sent by Munira Mirza on 4 May to a person whose name has been redacted, and which she copied to the GLA's Head of Cultural Strategy, Justine Simons . By this time public advertising of the post was underway. Mirza asks for assistance with having the ad sent to a list of people who might be interested in applying. There are 14 names on the list. Wadley's is at the top (see pages 429/30).
The email was sent within a week of Wadley's letter (28 April) to Mayor Johnson saying she intended applying for the job. About a week after that - 12 May - Mirza sent an email to Wadley:
Dear Veronica
Following your letter to the Mayor of April 28th, I am pleased that you would like to apply for the role of Chair of Arts Council London...
There follows a link to the job description and some helpful sentences to end:
We will also post you the forms for your convenience. The deadline is 27th May.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Three weeks later there was direct contact between Wadley and Mirza's PA (page 373). It seems that Wadley's application - made on paper and sent by registered post as seems to have been her preference - had yet to find its way to Mirza. The latter's PA emailed Wadley late on the original deadline day to tell her that her application "does not seem to have been received yet," and could she submit it again. Scroll through the email exchanges that ensue to discover that by the following morning everything had been sorted out (it seems Wadley's original application had gone to the Human Resources department).
What should we make of the above?It could indicate that Mirza was making a special effort to confirm to her boss's friend Wadley that her application for the job would be very welcome and to ensure that it was safely received. The FoI file contains no personal message of encouragement from Mirza to any other candidate. That said, it contains evidence that Mirza made substantial efforts to attract a strong group of candidates for the job.
On 5 May, the day after she'd emailed Wadley expressing her pleasure at the latter's interest in the ACE London job, someone at City Hall replied to someone at the Arts Council that Mirza was "happy" to meet representatives of the recuitment consultants Saxton Bamfylde, a company ACE had contracted to help it fill various of its posts, including that of "London member" (page 462).
On 6 May, Mirza received an email from someone proposing an introduction to a friend who'd founded a charity for bringing musical education to schools (page 396). Five days later Mirza accepted, wondering if the charity founder might be interested in applying for the ACE London job. (Page 395). Moreover, we learn from an email sent on 28 May that was part of a sequence initially concerned with the locating of Wadley's first application that Mirza was "unhappy with the pool so far" - only nine applications had been received - and had informally extended the deadline in order that it might be enlarged (page 367).
I can only guess at what Mirza's feelings about the ACE London chair recruitment effort were at this stage in the chronology. Since Ben Bradshaw vetoed Boris' choice of Wadley for the job she has defended that choice unswervingly in public. Even so, I included in an email I sent to the Mayor's press office on 13 November an invitation for Mirza to respond to a suggestion made to me by an Assembly member that Boris's behaviour over the ACE London job had put her in the "very difficullt position" of having to defend it. I don't know what it means that I've had no reply.
