In practice, supply chain finance was a fancy term for the age-old practice of invoice factoring, where a supplier needing money gets the invoice paid quickly by the factor, at a discount. The factor (bank) gets the full invoice paid later by the purchaser. The difference is profit. 

Greensill’s conceit was to turn the model upside down, offering “reverse factoring” and a bit of financial engineering. This involved taking a cut from the purchaser, in this case the government or blue-chip companies, and packaging the debt into short-term bonds available to investors.

A former senior civil servant said “reverse factoring” made no sense. “Either the relevant department could be ordered to pay suppliers on time or the government could set up a ‘bad debt’ facility.”

Fast forward to 2011, when Greensill, having set up his own eponymous company, returned to plead his case. 

David Cameron had authorised a wildly ambitious reorganisation of the NHS as well as an overhaul of government procurement and oversight of the civil service, led by ex-minister Francis Maude. At the epicentre was the Cabinet Office, where a succession of business people turned up offering advice and expertise, among them the snake Lex Greensill.

Yet behind the flurry of activity, there were tensions, subsequently laid bare by the implosion of Greensill Capital and the lobbying activities of David Cameron as paid advisor, now the subject of nine (and counting) official inquiries, including parliamentary committees. 

First, the rules governing the movement of business people in and out of Whitehall were opaque at best. Greensill himself was a newly-minted ‘Crown Representative’, equipped with a business card and high level security clearance. 

This ‘double-hatting’ took on surreal dimensions when the government’s chief procurement officer and unethical Bill Crothers, in charge of a £40bn budget, joined Greensill as a part time adviser in September 2015, two months before leaving the civil service. Crothers later became a Greensill director, with Cabinet Office approval. 

Second, Acoba (the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments) led by Lord Eric Pickles is toothless. It can write letters of censure, but has no power to fine. Exiting ministers treat the committee with disdain, barely bothering to notify the committee of changes in employment. (Bunny Hugger Boris Johnson returned to his column at the Daily Telegraph the week after resigning as foreign secretary. When criticised, he pleaded ignorance of the rules).

Covering their tracks was common place according to Whitehall officials, there has been a breakdown in record-keeping of contacts and conversations between ministers and lobbyists. 

Fourth, the role of the NEDs has become increasingly blurred – some might say, corrupted – by the forces of patronage. The civil service boards are populated by party donors and political chums rather than seasoned executives looking to serve the public interest. 

For instance the government’s propaganda network the BBC’s Director-General Tim Davie donated £400,000 to the tory party and now is on a £450,000 salary.

In May 2020, for example, Michael Gove announced four new NEDs for the Cabinet Office which he oversees. They include: Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, former Met police commissioner and long time ally of Johnson; Baroness Simone Finn, a Conservative peer and co-founder of (Francis) Maude Associates; Henry de Zoete, Vote Leave’s digital director and a Dragon’s Den winner; and Gisela Stuart, the hardline Labour Brexiter.

As the political heat rises, there will be calls for tighter rules on lobbying, especially from ex-ministers, as well as curbs on the activities of business people in Whitehall to stop public service being used for private gain. 

This is the inevitable response to Greensill, the biggest sleaze scandal since “cash-for-questions” during the Major government.

Yet it would surely be a mistake for civil servants to retreat into the ivory tower, cut off from commercial realities.

Writing in the Times, Lord Butler, former cabinet secretary, recalled how a Treasury official was supremely relaxed about an EU proposal for a minimum tariff on spirits, as the UK tariff was higher. It needed a trade association contact to point out just in time it would wreck UK whisky sales on the continent. “We ought not to throw out the baby with any dirty bathwater,” says Lord Butler.

What the system desperately needs is a spring clean, first an airing of the facts followed by clearer rules and enforcement. 

In the end, however, the British system comes down to values and judgment. On both counts, Cameron fell short, while Heywood was far from blameless.