The newly appointed state secretary previously worked for the consulting company McKinsey. Who he has worked for there has not previously been known. But now the Prime Minister’s Office (SMK) is asking for access to his customer lists. – SMK has today sent a letter to McKinsey and requested that, as a minimum, Kristoffer Thoner be allowed to inform the Prime Minister, the Chief of Staff, the Government Councilor and the head of expedition in the Administrative and Constitutional Department about which clients he has worked for at McKinsey, writes State Secretary Kristine Kallset (Ap) in an email to news. – There is a need for more people here in the office to assess Kristoffer Thoner’s competence on an ongoing basis. Then we believe that transparency is important, so the optimal thing is for McKinsey to publish the client list, she says further. Dagbladet and VG were the first to mention the demand from SMK. ADVISER: Kristoffer Thoner was Jonas Gahr Støre’s advisor also in the 2019 election campaign. Photo: Carina Johansen / NTB Changed When asked by news why the Prime Minister’s office had not previously requested such access, Kallset replied as follows: – Before Kristoffer started at SMK, he had a dialogue with McKinsey about this. He asked that the client lists could be made public, and if that was not possible that he could inform key people at SMK about who had been his clients at McKinsey. None of these wishes were fulfilled, says Kallset. She points out that McKinsey is a global company that gives all its employees contractual confidentiality about which clients they work for. – Based on the clearer feedback McKinsey gave to Kristoffer, our assessment was that a letter from SMK will not change this decision, she says. But then things have changed: – We now register that McKinsey says in an interview to the media that they will consider providing more information about Kristoffer’s customer lists. That is also what SMK and Kristoffer himself want. Earlier today, Telenor confirmed to TV 2 that Thoner had the company as a client. – If you want to hurt yourself, SV’s justice policy spokesperson Andreas Sjalg Unneland says the customer list should be presented to sweep all doubts aside. – I don’t understand why the government wants itself so badly, he says to news. SURPRISED: SV’s justice policy spokesperson Andreas Sjalg Unneland. Photo: ISMAIL BURAK AKKAN / news – It is good that the Prime Minister’s office is now taking steps to find out who his new State Secretary has worked for, but I am very surprised that this is only happening after the State Secretary has been appointed to the Cabinet, says the justice politician further. – Until there is clarity in his client lists, we cannot know whether he has worked for Save the Children and the Church’s City Mission or the salmon lobby and the oil industry. It provides fertile ground for speculation among people and it is very unfortunate, Unneland believes. He points out that Støre must be absolutely sure that his own State Secretary does not give him advice that is favorable to the State Secretary’s former employer. – When the State Secretary does not want to make the customer list public, it can give the impression that the customer list cannot withstand the light of day. To sweep that doubt out of the way, the customer list should be presented. Confidentiality Also during Erna Solberg’s reign, the question of customer lists in previous employment relationships was up for debate. It then turned out that the ministerial council and government council, i.e. the civil service, gained insight into the customer lists. When news asked yesterday if SMK would also ask for the same, Kallset replied as follows: – Kristoffer Thoner has a duty of confidentiality about which clients he has worked with at McKinsey. McKinsey made it clear to Thoner before the appointment that his duty of confidentiality applies to all persons and organisations, without the possibility of exceptions, it said. However, SMK stated that Thoner “over the past year has mainly been involved in work with three different clients, two abroad and one with headquarters in Norway”. – The projects have been in media, entertainment, e-commerce and telecoms. The projects have all been based in the US and Europe, according to Kallset. Was strongly critical Kristoffer Thoner worked as an adviser to Ap og Støre during the election campaign in 2019. He also came from a position at McKinsey then. He returned to the company when his involvement in the Labor Party was over, before he was last week appointed as state secretary at the Prime Minister’s office. In opposition, Ap was strongly critical of the Solberg government bringing in key people from PR and consulting companies with secret customer lists. In several articles, Aftenposten has referred to a proposal from Ap veteran Martin Kolberg, who in 2013 would make it required to hand over such customer lists to the Storting’s Control and Constitution Committee. The following year, Kolberg and SP profiles Marit Arnstad and Per Olaf Lundteigen put forward a proposal which called for all new ministers and state secretaries to disclose their previous clients. In 2018, Ap went even further, writes Aftenposten. The party supported an SV proposal that not only the customer list, but also the content of the assignment should be made known to the public. “Instead of inviting such speculation by hiding who you have been tasked with, the client list should be made public, so that unnecessary suspicion can be prevented,” said Ap then. The newspaper also refers to the practice that was established when the Conservative Party’s Julie Brodtkorb came to the Prime Minister’s office from her position as managing director of the communications agency JKL in 2013. At the time, the cabinet minister, the top administrative manager at SMK, had access to the customer lists and could thus warn of possible conflicts of interest. The ministerial minister in the Ministry of Agriculture got the same when Frps Sylvi Listhaug joined the government as minister after the transfer from the PR agency First House.
ttn-69
Støre wants to know who his new advisor has worked for – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
