The new chair of the Charity Commission will have to work hard to demonstrate that he is sufficiently independent of the government, says Tania Mason.

It was always going to be difficult for William Shawcross to avoid the perception that he has been installed at the Charity Commission as a friend of the government, someone who would be sympathetic to the Conservative agenda after six long years of That Bloody Labour Woman. The Public Administration Select Committee vote that saw him into the job only sealed that perception: the Labour and LibDem MPs on the Committee tried desperately to block his appointment, but their three votes were outnumbered by the four Conservative members, and the ayes had it. Shawcross started his two-day-a week, £50,000-a-year job on 1 October and has now been in post for little over a month.

But perception is often not the same as reality, and only time will tell whether this view is correct. There is certainly no shortage of ammunition for those that prefer to paint Shawcross as a right-wing, true-blue Establishment Tory – witness his Eton and Oxford education, his close links with the royal family, and his published articles and books in support of Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black and the Conservative Party, for a start.

But Shawcross points out that he has never been a member of the Conservative Party and insists that he can lead the Charity Commission independently and impartially: “It’s essential that the Commission be independent of all government and all parties and I shall be strong in maintaining that. Of course everything is political and politics comes into everything, but this accusation that I’m going to do what the government wants me to do…I don’t even know what the government wants in this sector, except for it to be run well.”