Category Archives: business

The mad waste of public money by UK’s leading nuclear giants to pursue costs against a whistleblower at your expense

Posted on by
Sellafield

One aspect of the second recent cost hearing against whistleblower and human resources consultant Alison McDermott by Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which was not covered is the cost to the public and us the taxpayer.

During the hearing Deshpal Panesar, KC Sellafield’s lawyer from Old Square Chambers, rather pompously told the hearing that the fact Sellafield was claiming £20,000 off Alison was ” to protect the public purse”. He and the Nuclear Commissioning Authority which was also claiming £20,000 made a huge point that her “unreasonable behaviour” by pursing them at a tribunal meant she should pay a penalty.

What is now emerging from Freedom of Information requests is that the cost to bring this action far outweighs the money they will receive even if they are 100 per cent successful.

Both nuclear giants have already spent a huge sum – nearly £700,000 of taxpayer’s money – fighting Alison, whose consultancy was terminated, after her report revealed bullying and fear among staff at the nuclear site in Sellafield.

Alison McDermott

Now it is known from FOI that both organisations have spent £59,000 between them on preparing the case for the second hearing on top of money they had already spent for the first costs hearing. This doesn’t include the cost of hearing itself which is about another £20,000 considering Sellafield’s lawyers Deshpal Paneser. KC charges £5500 a day for the hearing and Emma Mills, from DLA Piper, who charges £3000 a day . The NDA employed another barrister, Rachel Levene and solicitors Pinsent Mason. Plus there were paralegals at the hearing.

Now one would think that after a High Court judge had ruled that the first costs decision was ” unsafe” and said his view should be taken into account by judge Stuart Robertson, who has heard the second hearing, there would be pause for thought. Both nuclear organisations are also lucky they will not face an appeal. So any sane organisation would decide to leave it there.

Instead we have the economic madness, which no commercial company conducting a risk assessment would follow, of throwing more money at bringing a second case when there is not the slightest chance of getting their money back. Indeed even if they were 100 per cent successful they stand to lose £40,000 and that is by no means certain they will get that. It is only that it is our money from the taxpayer they can throw it around like confetti.

So why are they doing it? The decision must have been endorsed by Euan Hutton, the new chief executive.

Despite previously serving as a Mental Health Champion alongside Ms. McDermott to foster a kinder and more supportive work environment, Mr. Hutton is now relentlessly pursuing costs against her.

In various YouTube videos, Mr. Hutton espouses the importance of treating people with kindness, yet his actions towards Ms. McDermott are anything but.  He actually says that “kindness is putting in the time to think about how different people act differently, that’s what kindness is all about”  [second video from 20 seconds onwards].    By hounding her for costs related to her whistleblowing for the second time, he has subjected her to immense stress and anguish, betraying the values he once claimed to champion.

See https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1938802916244720

Euan Hutton’s video.

Now Sellafield receives £6.7 million daily from taxpayers. Mr. Hutton’s decision to waste these funds on a vindictive legal battle against a whistleblower is an egregious misuse of public money. It is a slap in the face to taxpayers who trust Sellafield to use their contributions responsibly.

The Guardian has reported that the National Audit Office will investigate Sellafield’s substantial expenditure.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/15/spending-watchdog-launches-investigation-into-sellafieldI intend to make the National Audit Office aware of this blog post, as it highlights the unethical and hypocritical behaviour of Mr. Hutton. I think the public would strongly disapprove of their money being used to persecute a brave individual who spoke out against wrongdoing.

Mr. Hutton should be held accountable for his actions, which have caused harm to Ms. McDermott and undermined Sellafield’s commitment to employee wellbeing and to a culture of openness.

But perhaps this is the real reason for using public money in this way is to silence anybody else who might be thinking of exposing the dark secrets inside Sellafield. She is not the only whistleblower.

I approached Sellafield and the NDA about this waste of money but both said

“These issues are still subject to legal proceedings. We cannot comment further at this stage.”

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Guest blog: Sellafield deploys reverse glasnost

Posted on by

by Philip Whiteley

Sellafield site

As reported on this blog earlier this week, the confrontational, five-and-a-half-year whistleblowing litigation between equalities adviser Alison McDermott and Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority last week featured a one-day costs hearing at Leeds Employment Tribunal, even though an earlier costs award against Ms McDermott had been ruled as unsafe by the appeal court in London.
The aim of this article is to point to the public interest in matters at the heart of this case that have been treated lightly by the presiding Tribunal judges, and ignored by the two defending organizations (Respondents).

Alison McDermott


There have been strong, conflicting claims on both sides throughout the case, many of which related to the way in which litigation was conducted. These were the subject of last week’s hearing. The two Respondents were represented by KC Deshpal Panesar, for Sellafield, and Rachael Levene, for the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, hired by the law firms DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons respectively.

Deshpal Panesar KC

In her address to the court, Ms McDermott reminded us of the public interest in her original report from 2018: the workplace culture at Sellafield. In her address, Ms McDermott reported that just 11% of people on the site strongly agreed that they could speak out without fear of reprisal.
I have seen employee opinion surveys from the site. The scores for the prioritization of safety as an issue are significantly higher than the scores for ability to speak out, indicating a serious gap between formal policy and managerial practices. This matters especially on a nuclear site.

Mikhael Gorbachev. Pic credit:BBC

Nearly 40 years ago, following the accident at the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine, the then leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev recognized that a climate of fear both made such accidents more likely
and delayed a proportionate response. He instigated a policy of glasnost – freedom to speak up – as a direct consequence. This intuitive conclusion by Mr Gorbachev has since been vindicated by numerous workplace studies, which show that workplaces with low engagement and higher levels of fear are statistically more prone to accidents (the Gallup survey cited in this report, for example. the link is  Engaged Workplaces Are Safer for Employees (gallup.com)).
When I was talking with a press officer from the Office for Nuclear Regulation three years ago, in relation to the Ms McDermott case, he was unaware of this link, and assumed workplace culture and safety issues to be separate categories.

Rachel Levene

Rachael Levene, barrister for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, appointed by Pinsent Masons, last week claimed that Ms McDermott was not a whistleblower, and not entitled to protection from detriment under Section 47(B) of the relevant legislation. This was a narrow legal argument, while members of the press and the public can observe that Ms McDermott’s central claim of a bullying and toxic culture and an HR leadership that was not on top of the issues, have been the conclusions separately made by several authoritative sources:
 A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority,
 The BBC, in an investigation reported in March 2021 (as a declaration of
interest, I referred this story to the BBC), Link:Sellafield nuclear site a ‘toxic mix of bullying and harassment’ – BBC News:
 The Guardian, in a report in December 2023, link  Sellafield nuclear site workers claim ‘toxic culture’ of bullying, sexual harassment and drugs could put safety at risk | Energy industry | The Guardian
 The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s own representatives, speaking under oath at the main hearing on 29 June 2021, agreeing with the PwC report’s conclusions that the HR function was ‘not fit for purpose’’, praising Ms McDermott’s contribution and expressing surprise at her sudden departure, as
reported on this blog at the time. Link: Nuclear industry leaders contradict each other in landmark whistleblowing case | Westminster Confidential (davidhencke.com)

This evidence was missing from the 2021 Tribunal ruling that found against Ms McDermott. There is no transcript available at an Employment Tribunal, which hampered her appeal. I attended that day and have short-hand notes.
There is a significant public safety risk attended to last week’s hearing. Sellafield’s management were making a very public declaration that if someone dares criticize them, even if they have a strong case, sufficiently well founded to reach the appeal court which reached a balanced verdict, they risk having their professional reputation trashed and suffering the threat of a life-altering financial penalty (the Respondents have bid to claim a total of £40,000 from the Claimant). It is likely that those low levels of freedom to speak out will have fallen even further following last week’s hearing.
The principal tactic of the Respondents has been to promote a pejorative narrative about the claimant, largely based on her response to their own legal tactics. For example, from Mr Panesar we heard him say that Ms McDermott had made a false complaint of fabricated evidence being used against her, in a claim that was then dropped on the eve of a hearing, and that this was unreasonable behaviour.

Sellafield letters unlawfully processed on personal computers – ICO

From Ms McDermott, we learned that the evidence in question consisted of three letters purporting to complain about her conduct while working at the Sellafield site. This evidence was not presented at the beginning of litigation. At the point of her dismissal, she was informed that the sole reason for termination of her contract was financial – an explanation also given to the governing body. After Ms McDermott discovered that some £17 million had been allocated to work of a similar nature, the
Respondents switched to one of competence, admitting it had lied about the initial reason. The three letters only appeared one year later. The letters were produced on personal PCs, contrary to company policy. They were later found by the Information Commissioner’s Office to have been unlawfully
processed, in contravention of data protection law (Judge Lancaster wrongly described the ICO ruling as mere criticism in the 2021 tribunal ruling.)

As reported on this blog before, the metadata was wiped on one of the letters while in possession of DLA Piper. Link Sellafield Broke Data Rules in Whistleblower Case – Byline Times

When restored, the metadata showed that the document had been open for three hours at the point of its creation, during which time phone records showed that the author took a long phone call from the HR director Heather Roberts, the third Respondent in the case.
The focus by Sellafield’s lawyers last week on the style of whistleblowing or protests made by Ms McDermott, ignoring or downplaying their substance, is straight from the anti-whistleblower playbook. It has been used by several NHS trusts to discredit medical professionals raising safety concerns – several of whom were watching last week’s proceedings in Leeds, either in person or by remote link.

In NHS cases such as the case of Dr Usha Prasad (link Unfit for Purpose: The NHS appeal panel that upheld the sacking of Dr Usha Prasad | Westminster Confidential (davidhencke.com)and of Martyn Pitman, the narrative concerns relations with colleagues and associated allegations; again, a highly personal attack on the style of reporting used by the whistleblower, ignoring the substance of their reports.(link

 Whistleblowing ‘cost Hampshire doctor dearly’ after he loses tribunal | Employment tribunals | The Guardian

Quite how such tactics have come to be regarded as acceptable by Tribunal judges is a matter of concern, and is likely to come under scrutiny now that the NHS Whistleblowers’ Group, numbering some 1,600 individuals, has been invited to assist the Thirlwall Inquiry into the Lucy Letby case.
Sellafield’s lawyers and press officers will point to the 2021 ruling which found in their favour – a judgement that got the ICO ruling wrong, ignored swathes of evidence and multiple failures of disclosure by the Respondents. There is a term in football: the ugly win. Sellafield et al won ugly. But this is not football, and the ugliness is a much bigger story than the win.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Sellafield whistleblower fights nuclear giants to avoid a £40,000 costs order for the second time around

Posted on by
Alison McDermott

Alison McDermott, a human resources and diversity consultant, was back at a tribunal last week fighting a second attempt by Sellafield waste facility and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to demand costs after she brought a whistleblowing case against both of them.

The consultant was sacked by Sellafield after she compiled a report at their request which revealed bullying at the plant and since then has faced a tribunal and an appeal tribunal before this fresh action bought by both nuclear bodies. She lost the first tribunal heard by judge Lancaster who originally ordered she should pay the £40,000 costs. But an appeal judge Auerbach overturned the costs order as ” unsafe”,

This week both bodies decided to spend more taxpayers’ money and appeal the judge’s order to ditch the costs. If Sellafield succeeds it will recover just six per cent of the huge lawyers fees both bodies had paid to pursue her for years.

The hearing opened with a blistering attack on her by Sellafield’s lawyer, Deshpal Panesar KC, Of Old Square Chambers who is paid £5.500 a day, effectively said that everything Alison McDermott said , including her whistleblowing detriments was a ” baseless lie”.

He told the tribunal she had made  “baseless claims of the most damaging sort, representing an existential threat to the careers of multiple public servants, based on multiple untruths”. Indeed so strong was his attack that a person who overhead part of the proceedings thought I had tuned into the Old Bailey and was hearing the denunciation of a convicted criminal.

Rachel Levene

Rachael Levene, representing the NDA, said Ms McDermott had “acted unreasonably”  by involving the nuclear body in the case at all. She claimed that the body, which works closely with Sellafield, was not involved and Ms McDermott should have known that because of all the evidence it produced. Given that the body had failed to extradite itself from the tribunal in the first place, this seemed to me rather a chilling attitude to take as it suggests that claimants should be blamed if they bring a case at all.

The NDA then raised that it had offered £160,000 to settle the case – even though it was arguing at the same time it should not have been involved in the first place – but this had been rejected by her. Ms McDermott has said that she did not settle the case over the money but over a point of principle to raise the issue in a tribunal. She also said that judge Lancaster had refused herself and her husband’s request to contest the NDA’s version of what happened at the meeting when the offer was made.

Sellafield

Alison McDermott countered arguments by Deshpal Panesar by pointing out that the appeal judge had ruled that the costs had been ” unjustly awarded ” and questioned his assertion that she was not a whistleblower by pointing out that the appeal judge decided she was and that judge Lancaster’s tribunal had erred in its judgement on two disclosures.

She also pointed out that she had pressed repeatedly for mediation to solve the dispute but this had been rejected and also that both sides had decided to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on expensive lawyers when they had big human resources and legal departments, over 100 at Sellafield, which could have handled the case.

Moral obligation to scared staff at Sellafield- Alison McDermott

She told the judge :”I was brought in to do a job and I did my job. I felt a deep moral obligation to the people I was speaking to who were telling me how scared and stressed they were by the culture at Sellafield.”

She said she was told by Lesley Bowen, a senior HR Manager, at Sellafield that she was let go for financial reasons.  Ms McDermott asked if there were any other reasons and Lesley Bowen confirmed  in writing that it was purely down to financial constraints. But after Ms McDermott found out they had spent £17 million awarding HR contracts they changed their tune and said they had lied to her and that they were really letting her go due to performance concerns. Which is odd as they had just rehired her, according to Ms Bowen, due to her excellent past performance working across Sellafield and the NDA.

At an earlier tribunal she had felt she had been treated by Mr Panesar equally badly during cross examination

She told me:” I found he transgressed professional boundaries and went further and took no account that I was vulnerable to such criticism.
“Over many days he accused me of being “motivated by spite,” “self-serving,” “self-absorbed, “wholly intent on chasing a windfall”, “seeking to ruin the reputations of HR staff at Sellafield” and even “acting out of revenge” .

She also disputed any idea by submitting a Freedom of Information request to obtain information that had been withheld by Sellafield and the NDA amounted to ” unreasonable behaviour.” These included information that both Sellafield and the NDA has spent £670,000 between them on lawyers and the NDA has just spent another £45,00 on prelimary legal work to recover £20,000 from her.

She pointed out that she and a witness on her behalf, another whistleblower at Sellafield, Karl Connor, had experienced ” unremitting stress” from the management at Sellafield.

She concluded: “The Tribunal is implored to recognise the substantial challenges the Claimant has faced in bringing this whistleblowing claim which has now been ongoing for 5.5 years.  The Claimant asks the Tribunal to affirm whistleblowers’ vital role and prevent further harm or costs to the Claimant. The significance of not penalising whistleblowers is particularly acute in the context of Sellafield Ltd, a nuclear facility where the potential consequences of unchecked wrongdoing could be catastrophic.”

Judge Stuart Robertson reserved judgement which will announced later.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Why the next government must tackle Whitehall reform to get the best bang for its buck

Posted on by
Francis Maude pic credit: Gov.uk

Last week I attended a meeting of the industry forum, a progressive think tank that discusses crucial business and economic issues often addressed by Labour politicians and MPs under Chatham House rules. This one was different for two reasons. It was “on the record” and it was addressed by a former Tory minister, Francis Maude, one of the founders of Policy Exchange, a Conservative think tank and traditionally to the right of the party.

But before anyone on the left start to think this is another example of Sir Keir Starmer’s lurch to the right, this was an unusual and useful meeting of minds.

Lord Maude has recently conducted a thorough and detailed independent review of the governance and accountability of the civil service for the government – not the most sexiest of subjects. But its important findings have been spurned by the present Tory government.

To my mind there is a lot to be learned from this review for both Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. It is quite clear from the latest interviews with Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, that she believes that if Labour win the next election it is going very difficult for them to spend more cash on the day to day running of public services. Labour needs to make sure it doesn’t waste a penny of taxpayer’s money and Lord Maude’s proposed reforms could help them achieve this.

What Lord Maude frankly exposes is that Whitehall is directionless. Yes there are theoretical controls – the PM is technically responsible for running the civil service. But there is no system of delegating this power to either civil servants or ministers.

Centre of Whitehall is unwieldly

The result in his words: ” The centre is now unwieldy, with confusion about where responsibilities lie and a lack of clear lines of accountability. Other jurisdictions with similar systems provide signposts to improved arrangements.”

Why this is important is that it means there is a lack of overall control on how large areas of government spending are made and how effective the policies implemented by governments are in practice. One only has to read my articles in Byline Times to see legions of exposures by the National Audit Office of waste, inefficiency and bad decision making which could have saved the taxpayer billions.

Lord Maude’s proposals include merging the Cabinet and the Prime Minster’s office into one powerful body – so a future PM will have much greater control over the direction of the government – and a new Office of Budget and Management to bring together cross Whitehall projects which tend to fall into a void because of Whitehall’s silo mentality.

The head of the civil service should also be a full time job so he or she can concentrate on bringing about all these reforms and so should the First Civil Service Commissioner who should be in charge of a wider programme and be able to hold the head of the civil service to account and make an annual report to Parliament.

Every minister should get a letter telling him or her clearly what their powers are and what they should expect from civil servants.

Not a lot of this is radical stuff. Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand already have similar systems because they are more modern democracies than the UK.

Labour are about to start talking to the civil service under the usual courtesy given to opposition parties before a general election. This would be an ideal situation to raise this. I would also suggest that the Shadow Cabinet should have a session with Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office, to draw on the independent body’s wealth of experience of what went wrong in the past and how they could avoid such pitfalls in the future. Voters will depend on Labour getting it right.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Alison McDermott – Sellafield whistle blower speaks out on employment tribunal failings at ECEC Conference

Posted on by

This is the first blog with me by my new assistant Joseph Eden, a City University journalism graduate, on a speech given by Alison McDermott, on her horrendous experience as a whistleblower trying to expose bullying and malpractice at Britain’s largest nuclear site and the appalling treatment she received at the hands of British Justice

Alison McDermott being interviewed by Katy Diggory

by Joseph Eden

Employment disputes are supposed to be settled in a free and fair way; the reality is much different. In an interview at the 2023 Annual European Compliance and Ethics Conference in Munich, the largest conference dedicated to this subject globally, whistle blower Alison McDermott spoke of her case, and of a system that is awash with discrimination, inequality and abuse – at the expense of those who need it most.

A recap for readers of this blog, Alison told the conference the ordeal Sellafield and its governing body, the NDA, have put her through. After speaking out about serious employee abuses and abject failures within the nuclear facility’s HR department in 2018, HR director Heather Roberts and Lesley Bowen, who was responsible for the company’s EDI strategy, dismissed Alison overnight, citing financial reasons. Later, when Alison pursued litigation, Sellafield changed its tune, instead saying they acted on concerns over her performance, only mentioning financial reasons “to be kind”.

“It just doesn’t stack up”, she told interviewer and communications consultant Katy Diggory. “There is nothing kind about telling someone that we’re sacking you for one reason, and then three months later introducing a new reason when you no longer have a right to reply because you’ve already left”.

In addition, Alison produced a document highlighting Sellafield’s offer of an 18-month contract renewal just one month before her dismissal, which detailed the nuclear site’s perception of her previous work there as excellent and trusted by the executive.

What followed Alison’s dismissal is another damning indictment of the employment tribunal system. From her initial claim to the verdict, Alison recounts the bullying and harassment she was subjected to, labelled a “self-absorbed, self-serving woman” by Sellafield’s barrister, who insinuated she was pursuing her employer purely for financial gain – despite full knowledge of Alison having refused a £160,000 settlement offer.

Her interview at the conference further highlights the egregious power imbalance within the tribunal system. From the contrasting legal budgets of self-funded claimants versus their employers (in this case, an employer whose £670,000 of legal fees were picked up by the taxpayer), to the absence of any court transcript, and the lack of safeguards to protect employees from having reputation-damaging judgements publicly made against them simply for speaking out.

“Imagine being in a boxing ring with your hands tied behind your back and having to absorb punch after punch” was the metaphor Alison used, her experience made even more shocking with Judge Philip Lancaster allowing her former employers to pursue her for the maximum allowed costs.

Sellafield

Research by Greenwich University supports the imbalance Alison described, finding that more than half of all whistleblowing claimants represent themselves at their hearings, usually as a result of financial constraints. At the same time, employers are securing more expert legal representation than ever before.

The conclusions point to a modern landscape at odds with the informal grounds upon which the employment tribunal system was founded. The requirement of an advanced understanding of legal dogma has accompanied the encroachment of major legal firms into the realm of employment law – with employers spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend themselves from the claims levied against them.

This calls into question how an individual claimant could ever be able to compete against their bosses. The outcomes of employment tribunal cases indicate that, in practice, they rarely can. Referencing the government’s own tribunal statistics, Alison told the conference that between 2007 and 2021 only 3% of whistle blowers were successful at tribunal, noting that for women, the challenges faced are even more difficult.

“I think it’s incredibly hard for anyone to blow the whistle because of the huge barriers and inequality”, she said. “But research shows that women’s motives are more likely to be mistrusted”.

Need for substantial reform of the Employment Tribunal system

This phenomenon, Alison says, was manifest in her own judgement, with Judge Lancaster determining she was “pursuing some ulterior motive related to her desire to position herself as the champion of inequality within the nuclear industry”.  This despite Judge Lancaster having reviewed evidence of Sellafield describing her as already a nationally respected expert in her field of work.

The experience of employment the tribunal system Alison shared with the ECEC stands as a clear example of why it needs substantial reform. Even now, following a successful appeal of her judgement, she is still being pursued by Sellafield for costs.

Alison at the conference

“Their duty is to create an environment where people are free to speak out, but hounding people for costs will obviously have the opposite effect” she said, adding that her tribunal experience has left others at Sellafield, the largest nuclear site in Europe, even more scared to raise concerns than they already were.

Closing her interview, Alison recommended several changes employers could implement, many of which are echoed by those who have gone through the same system. Assuming basic training and policies are in place, she prescribed a confidential way for employees to report concerns, a whistleblowing champion within organisations that values people who speak up, and finally that litigation should only be used as a last resort:

First, “investigate, investigate, investigate” she implored, ideally using external investigators. “I think that would send a very clear message to employees that the company really wants us to speak out.”

For those who want to hear directly from Alison the gruesome experiences of being a whistleblower there is a full video on YouTube of her speech. It is well worth watching.

Usha Prasad: Whistleblower Consultant cardiologist faces record £180,000 cost claim from NHS health trust

Posted on by
Dr Usha Prasad

It is a fact that among the tens of thousands of employment tribunals held every year claimants do not have to pay their employers costs in 99.95 per cent of all cases.

Therefore it is absolutely extraordinary that Dr Usha Prasad, a whistleblower cardiology consultant at Epsom and St Helier University NHS Trust is facing a special costs tribunal next week for an astonishing £180,000 claim from her employer at the London South tribunal in Croydon.

Even in rare cases where costs are sought the maximum is £20,000 and the level of proof has to be very high. The claimant has to be seen to have been acted “vexatiously, abusively, deceptively or otherwise unreasonably” or has brought proceedings deemed to be misconceived.

Epsom Hospital part of the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust

However it is looking like that where whistleblowers are sacked and go to an employment tribunal more and more judges have agreed to hold cost hearings so the public body can recover some or all of its costs. And lawyers acting for these bodies threaten huge costs against whistleblowers to deter them from proceeding further. This has been used against Dr Chris Day in his decade long battle against the Health Education Executive and Greenwich and Lewisham NHS health Trust over patient safety and , against Dr Duffy, author of ‘Whistleblowing in the Wind’. Non NHS whistleblowers also face this. More recently this involved a case against Alison McDermott, a management consultant, at Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), who exposed a raft of bullying, harassment and other grave failings at the nuclear plant.

Alison then faced a £40,000 cost hearing – both bodies sought the maximum figure – with judge Lancaster refusing to accept she was a whistleblower- only to have his decision declared  ” unsafe” by a judge at the high court. He determined that the costs were unsafe and must be ‘quashed.’  HHJ Auerbach also  overruled Judge Lancaster and confirmed that Alison was whistleblower. A FOI has revealed that Sellafield and the NDA have spent an extraordinary sum – £660,000 resisting that she was a whistleblower.

Unbelievably Sellafield and the NDA have just sought to reinstate the cost hearing again with the same judge who made the ” unsafe” costs ruling which has already been thrown out by the higher tribunal. Which of course sends a chilling message to any would be whistleblowers at the most dangerous nuclear site in Western Europe.

In Dr Usha Prasad’s case the trust and its lawyers, Capsticks, have gone one step further by getting a hearing next week wanting the judge to order a £180,000 costs finding against her.

Now in researching whether this has happened before – the only case I found which is highlighted by the Association of Costs Lawyers is Gosalakkal v University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, where the paediatrician who made a series of whistleblowing claims walked out of the costs assessment hearing and ended up being ordered to pay £82,000 to the trust. This went to appeal in 2019 and the judge was criticised for misunderstanding the whistleblowing nature of the case and the initial award was quashed. It turned out there was a breakdown of relationships among consultants there as well, a disciplinary hearing and he was dismissed. He left Leicester and got a new job in the United States.

Judge Heap ruled in April 2017 that she could do this citing rule 78 of tribunal regulations set in 2013 which allows her to exceed the £20,000 limit by having a detailed costs assessment or send it to a county court to decide. I am pretty sure Capsticks will be citing these rules and the case next week.

I am sure the Association of Costs Lawyers would have highlighted any higher settlement than this so this will make the Dr Prasad hearing a new record for tribunals pursuing whistleblowers for costs. The biggest sum ever awarded at an ET tribunal to an employer was £432,001.85 in a dispute between Copthorne Hotels and a Mr Tan who had withdrawn any whistleblowing claims.

The problem for Dr Prasad is that these hearings specifically rule out discussing the merits of previous tribunal hearings in her case. She has had enormous support from other practising colleagues at the Epsom Trust trust. You only have to look at a website to see the appreciation of her work at Pinderfields General Hospital in West Yorkshire to see pages of praise from patients. These were made while the case against her was being pursued by the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust.

She has still to await the official result of an employment appeal tribunal hearing against her case claiming perversity and bias and error of law by the judge involved ( see below) and the trust has secured a costs hearing in just over five months while the average wait for the overloaded employment tribunal system to hear a case is now 335 days. She has been refused access to the judge’s notes to defend herself and her barrister who appeared for her previously is not available to defend her.

Judge Tony Hyams -Parish

The judge who heard her case Tony Hyams-Parish, threw out all “her allegations of victimisation, sex harassment, and sex and race discrimination” and ignored in his judgement the admission from the trust that it had failed to report to the coroner an ” avoidable death” of a heart patient treated by another doctor and tried to get her to change a report on the incident. My reports of this part of the hearing is the only record that it happened. See it here and here.

Capsticks have seized on this to write to her saying :” The Respondent has incurred very substantial costs indeed in defending the unmeritorious proceedings, of in excess of £150,000 plus VAT. The costs incurred correlate to the Claimant’s unreasonable conduct and the unmeritorious nature of her complaints.”

What is also missing is that the trust put in 43 complaints to the General Medical Council to build up a case against her.. Every one of those complaints was thrown out by the GMC after a highly skilled cardiologist looked at them and she was automatically approved to continue working as a doctor without any further revalidation.

The BMA despite receiving letters of support from her medical colleagues has refused to give her any financial backing to fight this hearing, citing that it did not have a 51 per cent or more chance of success. In my view that is short sighted as far as I can see the hearing is about the costs incurred by the trust in fighting a whistleblower case and if they do not challenge this, they are leaving all their members to be hung out to dry by NHS trusts.

Not to put to fine a point on all this my thoughts are this has all the hallmarks of being a ” Kangeroo tribunal ” next week where a litigant in person, an excellent doctor, is being arraigned by legal heavyweights with little chance of being able to defend herself. Let’s see if this is true next week

Please donate to Westminster Confidential so I can continue my forensic reporting.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Rishi Sunak: The Road Kill PM

Posted on by
” Dishy Rishi” or our new Maharajah Pic Credit : Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street

Increasingly desperate about his poll ratings the Prime Minister has turned to dumping green policies as Europe burns. The Tories managed by just under 500 votes to hold Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip and claimed that stirring up the introduction of new charges for the ULEZ ( Ultra Low Emissions Zone) being extended to all vehicles entering Greater London helped them hold it. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, bought the argument.

For the record two other reasons also contributed to counter that view. Despite ULEZ the Green Party polled 893 votes taking more than enough votes from Labour to deny them the seat. And the seat has a substantial Indian minority – who are thrilled to have an Indian PM – with many mothers dubbing him “Dishy Rishi” as they see him as a trailblazer for the future community.

But Sunak’s short term populist stance on these issues aimed at the “boy racer” motorist vote is going to have a devastating effect on the health and lives of ordinary people. In the space of a week the PM has signalled he is against ULEZ, against 20mph speed limits, against restrictions on cars in residential neighbourhoods and in favour of a massive expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea. If he gets more desperate I can see him dropping the ban of new diesel and petrol cars and promising the combustion engine will live forever in the UK.

Bill Esterson Labour’s business and industry spokesman Pic credit: Industry Forum

And none of this is good for long term planning for business to transition to net zero as Labour’s shadow business and industry spokesman, Bill Esterson points out. It could even damage our own car industry as every country we export is switching to electric cars.

As he says: “Over 70% of our car exports go to markets that have already set a phase-out date of fossil vehicles.

Other countries are committed to the transition away from fossil fuels. And they are keeping their commitments.”

All these measures will damage the health of people and cost lives. That is why I think he deserves the title of the Road Kill PM – the roads of the UK will not only be littered with dead wildlife but dead and injured children and pedestrians.

Take the ULEZ zone itself. This is as much a public health issue as an environmental one. Children have died in London because of it so Sadiq Khan is right to introduce it. And the Tories are hypocritical about the zone – it was demanded by Grant Shapps, as transport secretary as part of a cash settlement to bail out Transport for London during the Covid crisis. So it could be called the “Grant Shapps” ULEZ zone as much as Khan’s.

In France ineligible cars are BANNED not charged in Ulez zones

Also drivers chaffing at paying the charge should know that this initiative is not confined to the UK. If they drive to France on holiday they will find they are not charged but banned from driving in a growing number of big city centres and could be fined. And all eligible cars and motorbikes have to carry a clean air sticker or you cannot drive in France.

No wonder doctors have written Sunak and Khan to say.

“Air pollution affects every one of us from before we are born into old age. It not only causes respiratory conditions such as asthma, but also heart attacks, heart arrhythmias, strokes, child developmental disorders, lung cancer and dementia.

“Ulez works. It has already saved lives and prevented many illnesses and hospital admissions.”

As for reviewing 20 mph limits in cities including London. There is no question that will result in more deaths and injuries.

Road crash Pic credit: Brake, road safety charity

Brake, the road safety charity, says:

“A vehicle travelling at 20mph would stop in time to avoid a child running out three car-lengths in front. The same vehicle travelling at 25mph would not be able to stop in time, and would hit the child at 18mph. This is roughly the same impact as a child falling from an upstairs window.

The greater the impact speed, the greater the chance of death. A pedestrian hit at 30mph has a very significant (one in five) chance of being killed. “

Latest statistics for London show the number of collisions has reduced by 25% (from 406 to 304), and collisions resulting in death or serious injury have also reduced by 25% (from 94 to 71), demonstrating the huge impact of lowering speeds to 20mph on many roads.

But for Rishi Sunak to get his votes back and stay in power obviously a few more children or pedestrians killed or maimed every year are a price worth paying. Anyway he seems to go most places by helicopter.

Then there is the big boost to finding North Sea oil with 100 new licences to be issued by the government. Again this is going down the wrong track. The North Sea is not the only place being explored when I was in Namibia a big exploration was under way near Walvis Bay which could yield an enormous new field. At some point the big increase in electric vehicles is going to meet the burgeoning supply of oil and as demand for oil falls so will the price until it becomes uneconomic.

The security claim is rubbish too – since it will be traded on the open market. What is true is that Rishi Sunak’s family firm Infosys will personally benefit every time BP gets a licence as they signed a deal with the oil giant just before the exploration licences were announced. His wealthy family will see the petrodollars rolling in, the more BP win concessions. No doubt the cash will be hidden in some offshore tax account so we won’t know about it.

Next month Rishi Sunak will be in Delhi for the G20 summit and the press there is already very excited about him coming there. Politico Europe is already suggesting he will be mobbed by ecstatic Hindus. And the Times of India has heralded his arrival in Downing Street as a move from ” Empire to the Rishi Raj”. Others see this as revenge for Britain’s Imperial past ruling India. Now Rishi rules over the British people instead.

The choice of helicopters for Rishi Sunak from Maharaja Aviation

Given his penchant for exorbitant expensive helicopter rides over mundane journeys by rail or road I have found the perfect charter company for his travel. It is called Maharaja Aviation and runs a fleet of helicopters. He can fly like a modern fabulous wealthy maharaja across India dispensing baubles to the masses. And in the meantime he can forget the country he rules with its sky high mortgages and rents, sewage in the seas and rivers, food inflation and its demonising of other foreigners who try to seek sanctuary on its shores.

Please donate to Westminster Confidential so I can continue to report independently on issues of the day.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00
£5.00
£15.00
£100.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Britain is becoming disconnected – 1 million people quit broadband because of the cost of living crisis

Posted on by

pic credit: Andrew Neel

A report published today from House of Lords savages the government’s failure to tackle digital exclusion when ministers have promised the country will become a world leader in digital technology.

Figures in the Communications Committee report are absolutely astounding.

It says: “1.7 million households have no mobile or broadband internet at home. Up to a million people have cut back or cancelled internet packages in the past year as cost of living challenges bite. Around 2.4 million people are unable to complete a single basic task to get online, such as opening an internet browser. Over 5 million employed adults cannot complete essential digital work tasks. Basic digital skills are set to become the UK’s largest skills gap by 2030″.”

The most disturbing figures came from Citizens Advice which has picked up that people are cancelling or reducing internet packages. This means we are going backwards. The report cites Which? for showing that on top of higher fuel, food, council tax, rail fares. broadband and mobile phone providers are upping their prices year on year by between 14 and 17 per cent.

Paltry 5 per cent of eligible people get a social tariff

There are social tariffs for the poorest on Universal Credit but they don’t seem to be marketed well by the broadband providers. They are taken up by a paltry 5.1 per cent of the people who are entitled to claim them – representing 220,000 of around 4.3 million eligible households. Monthly costs are lower -around £10-£15 rather than £30 or more but not low enough for the poorest who could only pay between £4 and £7 a month. The peers suggest VAT could be abolished on them to help and BT Openreach which has a near monopoly on connecting people could reduce its charges as well.

The breakdown of where the digital excluded are follow a familiar pattern. The largest number are in ” Red Wall” areas – the North East of England and also in Wales and Scotland. Internet connectivity doesn’t help either – there is a double whammy effect in the North East – Darlington and Middlesbrough are cited as having poor internet. The lowest number are in London and the South East. Age and disability is a factor as well. There is a significant drop in those not connected to the internet or having a smartphone for people aged 55 and above. But there are also a small minority of young people and those in their 30s and 40s who are also not fully connected.

Why does all of this matter? According to the report the failure of the government to update its digital inclusion policy since 2014 and its lethargic response to the problem will hit plans both by the Tories and Labour to grow the economy.

Government’s priority ” not credible”

The peers’ findings are savage.

“The Government’s contention that digital exclusion is a priority is not credible. Its flagship digital inclusion strategy is almost a decade old. Formal cross government evaluations seem to have stopped. Working groups have been disbanded. Interventions to help with internet access are too timid. The
Government cannot be expected to solve everything but it can achieve much by showing interest in driving change against clearly defined objectives. We have no confidence that this is happening. Senior political leadership to drive joined up concerted action is sorely needed.”

Liam Halligan, a Daily Telegraph columnist and journalist for GB News, giving evidence put it more vividly:

He said solutions were ““Just not sexy. Ministers like talking about unicorns and AI. They like being photographed with the tech bros in T-shirts and sand shoes, rather than dealing with what is a necessity of life now.“

Baroness Stowell of Beeston: Official Portrait House of Lords

“ Baroness Stowell, Chair of the Communications and Digital Committee said:“

“We have found a distinct lack of leadership in Government to tackle this issue. It is shocking that a digital inclusion strategy has not been produced since 2014 and the Government sees no need for a new one. It is vital we get a grip of this now.

“The cost of living crisis has made access to the internet unaffordable for many. We need urgent action to ensure people aren’t priced offline.”

A spokesman for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said:

“We are committed to ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital age. Steps we are taking include putting essential digital skills on an equal footing in the adult education system alongside English and maths.

“To boost access, we have worked closely with Ofcom and the industry to bring a range of social broadband and mobile tariffs, available across 99% of the UK and starting from as low as £10 per month, and our £5 billion Project Gigabit has already resulted in 76% of the UK being covered by gigabit broadband, up from just 6% at the start of 2019.”

Unless something is done quickly the future is bleak. A sizeable minority of people will soon be excluded from society altogether. Already 90 per cent of jobs are only advertised on line, bank branches are closing down and pressing people to open on line accounts. Ticket offices for trains are closing. Some 75 public services are planning to go digital and already some councils will only deal with people on line for applying for blue badges – even though many disabled people have no internet.

And future government policies are going to be based on machine learning information – which will effectively exclude those not on the internet. Cynically that is one good way to deal with the poor and the old – make them disappear so you don’t have to provide anything for them.

But in the end digital exclusion will hit the British economy very badly and we will all suffer. And those boastful and complacent ministers will see their world leading plans turn to ashes.
Please donate to Westminster Confidential to allow me to continue my forensic reporting.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

Yet another pension scandal .. Tory government cheats 4000 scientists out of their pensions by giving misleading advice when their company was privatised

Posted on by
Their misleading advice has cost retired workers dear

The Commons Public Accounts Committee this week published a damning report on a long running pension scandal which has seen retired pensioners lose hundreds of thousands of pounds from their pension pots because of misleading official advice given to them 27 years ago.

The pensioners were all employees of the AEA Technology – the state owned commercial arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority – which was privatised in 1996 by Sir John Major’s Tory government.

This sorry tale took place almost at the same time as the government had implemented the 1995 Pensions Act which raised the retirement pension for 1950s women from 60 to 65 and the DWP has been found guilty of partial maladministration by Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

The Tory government gave AEAT employees just one month to exit their contributory Whitehall pension scheme for a new one with the company taking over AEA. 90 per cent of the staff did.

Crucial to this rushed decision was an independent report by the Government Actuary’s Department which told all staff that the scheme was as good as remaining in the state scheme and might even be better.

What it failed to tell people was that if the company went bust or the pension scheme failed all the staff would lose their guaranteed protection of their pension savings that is provided by the government. It would be transferred to the Pension Protection Fund, lose all their inflation protection up to 1997, and they would live for the rest of their lives with only a 2.5 pc annual increase in their pension.

Government Actuary’s report was secretly changed by UKAEA lobbying

According to the written evidence from an ex employee David Roberts, a freedom of information request has revealed that this ” independent” report was tampered with by AEAT and the UKAEA behind the scenes. They got it rewritten because it was not persuasive enough to get people to quit the government scheme .

He wrote:” The sections which have caused the complaints were significantly changed as the result of a telephone conversation between UKAEA and GAD on 5/11/1996. “

GAD also failed to undertake a risk assessment about the switch.

In 2012 AEAT which had already cut funding to the pension scheme went into administration. The company was bought by Ricardo, an American firm, who immediately divested all its nuclear work .Its headquarters of a new firm are now in California.

One would have thought they sacked employees could get redress but for the last 11 years they have got nowhere.

They are barred from complaining to either the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Pensions Ombudsman.

Current legislation bars the Parliamentary Ombudsman from looking into case involving private pensions – and the government has just told the Commons Public Administration Committee there is no priority to change the law.

The case could come under the Pensions Ombudsman but there is a 15 year cut off point from when the event happened which blocks him from awarding any compensation.

Nobody in government takes responsibility

As the PAC report says:

“Nobody in government has taken overall responsibility for the case. There has been no independent review because the relevant ombudsman services have said they cannot investigate the information given to members in 1996, clearly highlighting that there are gaps in the routes of appeal people have for complaints about their pensions.”

The response from government since 2012 has been appalling. The DWP not only did not help but confused the issue. The report says: “In July 2013, DWP produced a factsheet summarising the complaints government had received and a response to each on behalf of the government. In February 2014, it then sent scheme members a further letter explaining that it was not responsible for the case.”

But it didn’t tell them who was and it turned out to be the Cabinet Office.

Sir Steve Webb- declined to help as pensions minister

Ministers were no better. Sir Steve Webb, then the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, would not intervene to change any rules to help the pensioners -saying if AEA Technology rules were changed it would affect other government services that had been privatised citing the BT pension scheme. He was actually wrong in this case, it is protected should BT go bust.

Two MPs tried to use private members bills to rectify the situation by changing the Ombudsman’s powers – but they were blocked by the Conservative government.

The government has escaped responsibility by never setting up an independent review of what happened and the Government Actuary’s Department has tried to avoid censure by saying their report was not the main reason why people switched their pension. This is contradicted by the employees who gave written evidence to the PAC.

people abandoned by an uncaring state

The whole saga is simply part and parcel of a government that cares little for the welfare of the ordinary citizen and tries to evade responsibility for its errors. Meanwhile people – who contributed to their pension and even put extra contributions to increase it – are just abandoned by an uncaring state. One person lost 40 per cent of their pension and all are affected by the cost of living crisis since they are not protected by the huge rise in annual inflation by the Pension Protection Fund.

Please donate to Westminster Confidential to allow me to continue my forensic investigations

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00

HMRC’s digital tax disaster – overspent, behind schedule and a huge hidden bill for taxpayers

Posted on by
Making Tax Digital |Government logo pic Credit: gov.uk

Rishi Sunak promised the UK will be a Science and Technology Superpower with world class digital technology attracting high skilled people from all over the world to come and work here.

Last October Chris Philp, then Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy,.at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, also promised a bright future for the digital economy outlining the UK’s digital future with a host of government initiatives.

Rishi Sunak Pic Credit; Wikipedia

Back down to the real world the National Audit Office today published a report on one of the government’s initiatives – Making Tax Digital -and what a sorry story it is. For those familiar with Whitehall failures – it was the same story – the cost of the scheme had sky rocketed, its planned introduction had been delayed again and again – and worse, those businesses planning to go digital to pay their VAT, there was a huge additional cost, which somehow HMRC forgot to inform the Treasury.

The huge cost of switching the tax system to digital was supposed to cost £226 million when it was planned in 2016. This covered all VAT payments, businesses who pay via self assessment schemes and corporation tax. Instead it will now cost a staggering £1.3 billion – some five times the original estimate.

And it won’t be on time.

Scheme repeatedly delayed

The original programme was repeatedly delayed. Originally HMRC planned the entire changeover in 2020.

As the report says: “The timeframes for MTD[ Making Tax Digital] were agreed before HMRC had fully explored the range of options.” As a result large parts of the programme had to be rescheduled .And then came Brexit and the Covid pandemic which the hit the programme. Only VAT for larger firms was introduced before 2020 -in 2019 – and VAT for smaller companies waited until 2022 and the whole exercise cost £70m more than planned.

But it is the plan to switch over to digital tax for the self assessment businesses has been hit the most. The report said: In December 2022, the government pushed back the timetable for Self Assessment for the fourth time, delaying benefits and increasing costs further. On the advice of HMRC the government announced it would delay the start date for MTD for Self Assessment and take a phased approach to introducing it.
It won’t be implemented until 2026 or 2027 and even then not fully – as the original plan envisaged. It will apply to annual income above £50,000 in 2026 and above £30,000 in 2027. No date has been given for income below £30,000 which is still ” under review”.

HMRC left out cost to people of paying their VAT

On top of this HMRC in its business case forgot to tell the Treasury that it also landed business and taxpayers a bill for £1.45 billion. This is because for the digital system to work businesses and the self employed have to submit returns over three months and need to buy or lease expensive software to do it. So the government has put the cost on businesses avoiding the cost themselves. In my small way it hit me over VAT. Since my income was below the threshold I decided the simplest way was to deregister for VAT so the government now get nothing. Previously it was a simple form to fill in your quarterly VAT return supplied by HMRC.

HMRC said. “A project of this scale naturally comes with challenges, but MTD will deliver a strong return on investment for the taxpayer. We have always been wholly transparent about costs for business. We remain committed to ensuring that free software will be available for those with the simplest tax affairs.”

Gareth Davies ,Head of the NAO, said: ““The repeated delays and rephrasing of Making Tax Digital have undermined the programme’s credibility and increased its costs. They put at risk the support of taxpayers and delivery partners, including those who are essential to the programme succeeding.  

“Our audit identified the omission of significant costs from some business cases. It is obviously important that business cases for major programmes such as this contain all the relevant information to support decision-making.”

My view is a bit broader than that. I am getting very fed up with rhetoric from leading politicians telling the public that every project is world class when clearly it isn’t. This report from the NAO shows what is happening in the real world, not in the complacent fantasy world of the present Tory politicians who govern us.

Please donate to Westminster Confidential so I can continue by forensic analysis of government policies.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£20.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

please donate to Westminster Confidential

£10.00