The arms company agreed to pay out £300m in penalties in 2010, following long-running corruption investigations. It admitted to false accounting and making misleading statements in relation to allegations of corruption.

A number of former officials and senior civil servants have taken up posts at BAE system after leaving office. The ‘revolving door’ between government and business has been criticised recently during the scandal over David Cameron’s lobbying for the failed financier Lex Greensill.

‘Scandalous’ hush-up

The ethics adviser role has been vacant ever since the previous holder, Alex Allan, quit in November over the prime minister’s refusal to take action on his inquiry into bullying allegations against home secretary Priti Patel.

Allan concluded that Patel’s conduct “amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying”. But Johnson, as the sole arbiter of the rules, said Patel had not breached the ministerial code and refused to sack her.

Without an ethics adviser for more than five months, the government delayed publication of the register of ministerial interests, which meant the entire government was in breach of the rules.

The ‘scandalous’ hush-up allowed private donations made to Johnson for the refurbishment of his flat to be kept secret for months.

Today, the Electoral Commission launched an investigation into the funding, saying it had “reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred”.

Limited powers

With growing calls for transparency over financial interests in government, there is concern that the new adviser’s terms of remit have barely changed from those of his predecessor

Lord Jonathan Evans, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, had previously made a formal recommendation that the system needed to change, to let the independent adviser “initiate” their own investigations.

Under current rules, Geidt will not be allowed to investigate anything unless the prime minister explicitly asks him to do so. And this applies even when the prime minister is the person accused of wrongdoing.

Margaret Hodge told openDemocracy: “The current scope and remit for the ethics adviser are hopeless. Under the current rules only the prime minister can initiate an independent investigation into wrongdoing in government, including against his own conduct.

“Given the number of serious allegations the prime minister faces, this poses huge challenges. If the terms of references do not change radically then the position is completely worthless.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.