I don’t usually run appeals for money on my blog but I am making an exception in this case because of the huge injustice in the employment tribunal system that allows some judges to insult, berate and patronise women who come before them.
if you want to donate this is the link. DO NOT CLICK ON THE YELLOW BUTTON ON TOP OF THE PAGE WHERE IT SAYS DONATE – as this will go to the general fund for the Good Law Project and not to the women. INSTEAD SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK ON DONATE BY CARD.
To do so they have to get a judicial review against the Judicial Conduct Investigation Office which is both refusing to investigate their complaints and ironically believes it is above our freedom of information laws so it doesn’t have to answer any questions from the press or the public on simple facts like how many complaints there have been against judges. This view is not shared by the Information Commissioner who ruled it should comply with FOI but the Ministry of Justice is planning to appeal this decision.
The case the women want to bring is not just against the bullying Judge Philip Lancaster – but against the whole employment tribunal system which doesn’t allow access to judges’ notes and does not produce court records for all cases and even when it does makes sure it is very expensive to get hold of them.
The women’s case has been taken up by the Good Law Project but the women still have to raise some £13,OOO to cover legal opinions. So far they have raised just over £5000. The case was covered by me in Byline Times here. Now it has been taken up by the BBC programme Look North.
You can see their report below.
BBC Look North coverage of the complaints against Judge Lancaster with interviews with Alison McDermott and Dr Hinaa Toheed.
The treatment of management and diversity consultant Alison Mcdermott, by Sellafield who spent £750,000 on top flight lawyers to oppose her claim at an employment tribunal presided over by judge Lancaster led to her local MP Anna Dixon to request an apology from Sellafield’s chief Euan Hutton at a recent Parliamentary hearing. None was forthcoming. Dr Hinnha Toheed, a GP, tells how she was shouted at 16 times by Judge Lancaster during a maternity discrimination hearing She says: “Judge Lancaster shouted at me 16 times, called my case an “omnishambles” before we had even begun, and showed open bias and contempt throughout the hearing. The experience was devastating. My barrister formally documented his behaviour and submitted a written statement to support my complaint. Yet despite this evidence, the system protected him — and he remains in post to this day.”
She is one of two doctors and a nurse who have put in complaints about Judge Lancaster.
These women need support to get to the position of bringing a judicial review because of the enormous cost of doing so – another barrier against people being able to challenge the judiciary. Their legal team include Emily Soothill of Deighton Pierce Glynn, Dr. Charlotte Proudman, and a prominent King’s Counsel have agreed to capped fees. But they need this money to be able to pay for this advice – and that is why there is a need for this crowdfunder.
II have chosen not to call for any donations for my site on this blog so the money can go direct to the women.
Last week Salford City Radio’s Ian Rothwell devoted a whole programme to the CedawinLaw case for mediation to solve the impasse of compensation for the 50swomen who faced a six year delay in getting their pension. Three speakers discussed the issues. Jocelynne Scutt, a former Australian judge and anti discrimination commissioner for Tasmania, gave an update description of the present legal position and how you do not have to court to start a mediation process. Janice Chapman ,a 1950s woman, gives a heart rending account of how women have already been discriminated against before they got their pension and then had to wait six more years before they could get it and how alternatives to work longer are often not possible. I give an interview questioning the wisdom of Waspi’s legal case for partial maladministration and how the All Party Group on State Pension Equality is moving towards insisting that all groups campaign together rather than the division between Waspi and all the other groups which has bedeviled the issue for years.
Euan Hutton, chief executive of Sellafield, found himself being called to apologise in public to whistleblower Alison McDermott by her local MP, Anna Dixon at a highly charged hearing of the Commons Public Accounts Committee last week.
Anna Dixon MP
The chief executive was clearly embarrassed to face questions about spending such a lot of public money to silence the whistleblower after she produced a report about the toxic culture of bullying and harassment at the UK’s biggest nuclear waste plant.
Alison McDermott, a well respected management and diversity consultant, had faced a series of tribunals and costs hearings.which cost Sellafield over £750,000 by employing top flight lawyers.The main hearing was before judge Philip Lancaster, a judge now facing complaints from 10 women, including Alison, for his patronising and misogynist approach to female litigants who appear before him.
Anna Dixon,Labour MP for Shipley, raised the issue at the beginning of the hearing which was to examine Sellafield’s record so far in running down the waste facility over the next 100 years.
She pointed out that Alison had been head hunted through Capita to work for Sellafield and was then employed directly because of her excellent work. After she produced a report revealing a toxic culture of bullying and harassment at Sellafield this all changed and she was removed from Sellafield.
She told him :” I understand that at that time you did not invoke your whistleblowing policy or take a statement, as required by your own policy. Instead, you spent some £750,000 on legal fees. Perhaps you would confirm that. You refused mediation for three years, and pursued Alison for costs twice and lost on both occasions. As you will know, the remit of this Committee is concerned with the proper ethical use of public funds. As the new CEO, Mr Hutton, I would ask you whether you think this was a good use of public money.”
….” I have seen the treatment of other whistleblowers, which is similar to the treatment of my constituent, that has serious detriment to health, mental health and indeed professional reputation. Alison, as you probably recognise, is sitting here in the public gallery. I recognise that you are not willing to say very much. I am disappointed in that, because most of this is historic and in the public domain. I wonder whether you might apologise to her for the way that she has been treated by Sellafield.”
Mr Hutton replied implying that the situation in Sellafield then was ancient history.
“Over the last seven or eight years now, we have made really big strides forward in addressing some of the issues that there were at that time. You might say that I would say that but, in the most recent staff survey, which concluded, I think, a fortnight ago—I only say “I think” because I cannot remember whether it was a fortnight ago—we have seen significant improvement.”
Anna Dixon concluded: “I am going to come back later and challenge whether these problems have really completely gone away. I do not think that I heard an apology, but I hope you will at least agree to meet with me and my constituent, Alison. “
Since the hearing Alison McDermott has written an open letter to Mr Hutton, David Peattie, group chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Paul Vallance, a non executive director of the NDA saying:
“The PAC’s examination has now raised serious questions about your leadership and your organisations’ management, culture, and safety practices.
I’ve made no secret of the toll this has taken on me. But each time I was faced with the choice between comfortable silence and speaking the truth, I chose the latter— without hesitation. That decision is one I will always carry with quiet pride. I can look myself in the mirror, sleep peacefully, and carry a clear conscience—something that is priceless.
I can’t help but wonder: how do you reconcile your actions?
What kind of man do you see when you look in the mirror? “
The PAC has now to produce a report following the hearing. I somehow think it will not be a glowing endorsement of practices at the UK’s biggest waste facility.
Daniel Elkeles, moving from CEO of the London Ambulance Trust to NHS Providers. He is the former chief executive of the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust.
In May Daniel Elkeles will become the £240,000 a year chief executive of NHS Providers, a membership body that covers all hospital, mental health, ambulance and community trusts. His job as NHS Providers will be to “to deliver high-quality, patient-focused care by enabling them to learn from each other, acting as their public voice and helping shape the system in which they operate.”
He will also following the demise of NHS England be a key link between the trusts and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and the PM Sir Keir Starmer, whom he met in his present role as CEO of the London Ambulance Service.
His brief as NHS Providers say is to “build effective relationships with key stakeholders in central government, with regulators and across healthcare; champion member interests and raise their profile positively in the media.”
His appointment was lauded in the trade magazine the Health Service Journal, while the chair of NHS Providers, Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, said:
“He will spearhead our new strategic vision and help members deliver improvements for patients, service users and the communities they serve during a period of immense change and challenge in the health service.
“We have been through a robust process to find the right individual to provide leadership and support for our members, to influence key decision makers, and inspire and lead our staff team, reflecting our values and our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation.” The HSJ went further saying: “During his time at Epsom and St Helier, Mr Elkeles led on plans, and secured funding, to build a brand new £500m specialist emergency care hospital in Sutton.
He also oversaw a “significant improvement” in patient care, quality, finance and leadership, culminating in the organisation being rated as “good” by the CQC.
The CEO also led on initiatives to improve culture and morale, resulting in Epsom and St Helier having strong scores in the staff survey in measures about equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as staff health and wellbeing.”
St Helier Hospital
What is missing from this plaudit is that the main hospital in that trust, St Helier, is falling down and in desperate straights with leaky roofs, brown water in the taps, and nothing is going to be done to replace it until 2036 under Labour’s current hospital building programme. Nor does Mr Elkeles appeared to have done anything much about it when he was chief executive.
But far worse this ” robust process” to select him as the best person for the job seems to have missed two rather key and worrying incidents in his career at St Helier. One led to prolonged employment tribunal hearings, the other reached the desk of Sir Robert Behrens, the former health service commissioner.
The employment tribunal case involved an extremely competent doctor who was dismissed after being branded as ” unfit for purpose” – a legal term that doesn’t exist for people -at a hearing organised by the trust. I am not naming her in this article but people may find part of the story familiar to readers of my blog.
What I am concentrating on is the role of the chief executive in dealing with her case.
Among the papers released for the tribunal were private emails between Mr Elkeles and her, which then became public documents.
In one Mr Elkeles offers a deal for her to leave the trust and escape what would amount to a disciplinary hearing if she drops any action against the trust.
He wrote: “We ensure MYT[ Mid Yorks NHS Trust] agree that you can go there and we jointly set up with them the required training and support 2) ESTH will pay your salary for a period of 6-12 months (to be agreed) whilst you are at MYT 3) At the end of the agreed 6-12 months period ESTH will no longer be your employer 4) ESTH agree to cease the MHPS process[ this was a hearing questioning her competence]which means we can find a way to ensure you are re-validated (not my area of expertise but i am sure there will be a way) 5) You need to drop all the actions you are taking against ESTH. If we can agree this then I would hope that everyone can move forward positively.”
When she refused to do this he wrote back: “I made a proposal on how to provide a constructive ending to this process on Friday. I did not expect to receive this type of reply from you which in my view does nothing to try and find a solution to this issue but just perpetuates the current impasse we seem to have reached. I therefore withdraw my offer and any input from me as CEO to resolve this informally. The hearing that is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday next week should continue as planned and reach whatever conclusion the panel believe is appropriate.”
What he was asking was that she withdrew any allegations against the trust of sexism and racism ( she was the sole woman at that level in that department and from an ethnic minority) and also hide a whistleblower claim about an avoidable death of a heart patient there which the trust admitted later in public they avoided reporting to the local coroner.
Her lawyer also produced statistics showing that despite the trust employing, like most London trusts, a very diverse range of people, it did not have a very good record in treating them.
As far as validation was concerned the General Medical Council revalidated her anyway – despite multiple claims of incompetence from the trust which were all dismissed by an independent medical expert asked to examine them.
The second case which involved the widow of a patient who died in agony at St Helier Hospital with nurses refusing to give him pain relief was covered on my blog. You can read the case here.
Robert Sheppard: Left to die in agony by St Helier Hospital
Her complaint to the Health Services Commissioner about his treatment led an apology from the chief executive but other matters by the management were brushed under the carpet. This included the fact that Robert Sheppard had picked up a bacterial infection called klebsiella which attacks people with a weak immune system and it was never notified by the hospital to the authorities, In fact his initial death certificate which would had to be provided by the hospital’s doctors airbrushed out that he had the infection.
Wendy , his widow, said:” Dying with dignity was something not given to Robert. I will never forgive St.Helier Hospital. It’s failures towards Robert were ‘swept under the carpet’ by the Hospital management. My complaints were misconstrued to make St.Helier look in a better light and incidents that happened weren’t recorded in Robert’s medical notes so I am told. “
All this raises questions about how Daniel Elkeles will do in his new job. Will he really speak truth to power or will he bury issues from public scrutiny to protect the reputation of the NHS trusts , who are his members? Will patient safety and equality and race issues be tackled with vigour or sacrificed to make sure his organisation gets a good press.
Electric car charging at home, Clean energy filling technology. Pic credit:www.freepik.com
A damning report from MPs today reveals that 1.2 million disabled drivers have been blocked by the government from being able to use electric charging points cars at motorway service stations and garages.
While the UK is on target to increase the number of charging points for the growing number of electric cars not one of the 73,000 charging points reaches accessibility standards laid down by the government for disabled people to use them.
The reason is that to install disabled friendly charging points has been left as a discretionary option for installers rather than a mandatory requirement by government.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP
Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown, the Tory chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: “It is of deep concern that the needs of disabled drivers are being ignored. Not a single charge point in the country is currently fully accessible. We are risking baking a serious injustice into the fabric of a major part of our national infrastructure. Government similarly needs to understand how to remedy financial inequalities for those who have no choice but to use public charge points. Our report therefore challenges the Government – it must move at pace to overcome current delays and encourage take-up, while taking the time to ensure no-one gets left behind in this all-important shift to the future.”
The report warns: “Many disabled people are reliant on their cars as existing public transport does not adequately cater for their needs. Failure to address problems with the uptake of the standard will mean that the public charge point network will continue to develop without meeting the needs of drivers with disabilities.”
The treatment of disabled motorists reflects the disparaging attitude both the last Tory and the present Labour government seem to have for disabled people. Rail travellers are similarly badly treated with patchy provision to access station platforms and the London underground is only partly accessible with Euston underground been seen as the worst station in Europe. Compare this to the excellent provision for disabled people on public transport in Singapore, Sydney, Adelaide and Rio. I have had a good experience taking my late wife in a wheelchair round these cities.
And it comes at a time when the new government is planning a £6 billion cut in disabled people’s benefits and is expecting the disabled to get to work without providing proper facilities for them to travel there.
The treatment of the disabled is just one criticism of the present electric charging provision. The report found a very uneven distribution of electric charging points round the country. London, where ministers mainly live, has 250 charging points per 100,000 of the population. While Northern Ireland has just 36 per 100,000 population – suggesting that people taking their electric car on holiday there might have problems. In England the worst areas for provision were the North West, including the Lake District and the East Midlands, including Lincolnshire.
Most charging points are in urban not rural areas and there is also a problem connecting charging points to the national grid – which suggests that when they are used more widely we might find them running out of juice.
The previous government set aside £950 million to do this – but the report reveals nothing has yet been spent as pilot projects were subject to delays.
There is also an economic problem with public charging points paying 20 per cent VAT while those who have the space for a home charger paying only 5 per cent VAT. So it is much more expensive to use public chargers.
There may be a further problem for the many people who live in terraced houses who install an electric charger and then put cables across the pavement and roads to charge their parked cars.
So much for the green revolution which we are all promised. It is certainly happening, but not been managed well and disabled people are just an after thought as far as policy makers are concerned.
This blog arose from the recent case highlighted by the Health Services Journal of Dr Susan Gilby, the former chief executive of the Countess of Chester hospital in giving evidence to the Thirlwell Inquiry about the resistance from senior NHS people she faced trying to admit mistakesthere. This is the hospital where a nurse Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and is now trying to get the case reconsidered. The CEO ultimately left the trust in late 2021, shortly after Letby’s trial began. An employment tribunal this month found she had been unfairly forced out by the trust and Mr Ian Haythornthwaite, the former chairman because she had raised concerns about his bullying behaviour. He resigned after the verdict.
Dr Susan Gilby Pic credit: BBC
Dr Susan Gilby is brave. Her experience is in keeping with many others who have raised concerns including patient safety issues. Dr David Drew’s comments ( See HSJ 08.44, 25 Feb) are spot on: the whole play book is sanctioned from above (NHSE and probably higher). Some colleagues and I have spoken to NHSE on several occasions (including in person, at Wellington House, SE London). We have nothing to show for it other than placations and weaselly words. Action, there is none.
Regarding NDAs (anon HSJ 13.39) in relation to healthcare and the NHS, they should be banned. They are “lawful” means of concealing (potentially very important) evidence which therefore cannot be tested in court. That’s the raison d’être of NDAs, isn’t it? And this is England, in the 21st century! And yes, Sir Robert Francis tried but was evidently misguided (see his 290 odd recommendations!). Jeremy Hunt did nothing to improve the “status” of NHS whistleblowers; if anything he made it worse by ignoring the problem and trying to belittle them.
On the Lucy Letby case there are now several authoritative sources seriously questioning the safety of the judgment (see Google). Let us hope that these processes will be allowed to evolve openly and unhindered.
It is high time the NHS leadership, politicians (West Streeting MP, SoS Health, are you listening?) reviewed the whole process of the treatment of NHS whistleblowers (they are “canaries in the coal mine”, right?).
If Trusts were banned from dismissing a doctor (or any Healthcare worker) who has “blown the whistle” or raised patient-safety issues (not “because” they have raised those concerns as that is banned by PIDA) it would save £millions. It would avoid hugely expensive law firms (of course taxpayer funded in the rôle of defending a Trust), Employment Tribunals and all the disastrous personal and professional consequences these Tribunals’ ill-considered decisions may lead to. Another consequence would be to eliminate the unfair and unnecessary loss of competent and sorely needed highly skilled doctors, (see Dr Chris Day’s case, Health Service Journal and elsewhere – its beyond belief but true). Training a doctor takes years, dismissing them takes minutes.
Employment tribunal system unaccountable
The Employment Tribunal system is unaccountable (well, if it is, it is to another branch of the judiciary, the Employment Appeal Tribunal process; marking one’s own homework?). It is heavily biased and has no place evaluating or investigating “patient safety issues” which it doesn’t understand. Neither does it understand the modus operandi of the NHS and medical matters (I won’t rehearse those arguments here – but for a start no offences have been committed and no laws broken by raising safety issues). In fact, raising safety concerns is not only strongly encouraged by professional medical bodies, but also part of a doctor’s code of conduct.
Internal management of “whistleblowing” matters are unregulated and unsupervised by an independent body. They are akin to “marking your own homework” because they are directed by the Trust CEO and perhaps some “chums” who can be relied on to give a favourable opinion. This is hardly appropriate, is it? WB may lose their jobs, their careers, £0000’s. Their professional and personal lives may be destroyed all in a process funded by the taxpayer. How is that “fair and open justice”? It is not!
The last thing a WB wants to do is go to an Employment Tribunal presided over by a “dodgy” ET Judge who delivers questionable judgments and pay “dodgy” law firms £000s for a <3% of winning (whatever “winning” means; if it comes it usually does so at the end of a spiral of losing first ET, appeal at EAT, lose EAT appeal. A “win’ may mean the case is referred back to the ET and round and round we go! This is the gist of things anyway. No wonder dismissed doctors are strongly advised (not by lawyers of course) to give the ET circus a miss, save their hard-earned money instead of paying extortionate fees to law firms and take the less stressful path of getting on with their lives. (NB The Tribunal step could be all but eliminated at a stroke by banning dismissal of a doctor who has raised patient safety issues).
If a Hospital Trust doctor raises patient safety concerns, history tell us they are very likely to suffer serious detriments in the form of restrictions, disciplinary hearings, pay cuts, referred for MHPS investigations concerning contrived allegations of incompetence or whatever, and suspensions as part of a vindictive reaction of Trust management who have (for some reason) taken offence. Instead, should they not be promptly investigating and correcting the shortcomings, how they were raised and by whom? If these adverse rill-informed reactions can be stopped there is hope for progress. One consultant, a colleague, was submitted to a flawed MHPS process (using an external agency) which supported the Trust’s claims of “incompetence” by alleging the doctor was not “fit-for-purpose”. (Further information provided upon request). As far as I know the confabulated charge of “not-fit-for-purpose” does not exist in (English) Employment law, but it was accepted without question by the Trust and the doctor was dismissed. As the saying goes, “You pays your money and you takes your choice”, (Aldous Huxley, Brave New World). The Trust had achieved its aim – to secure dismissal of a “difficult” doctor through what can only be described as a “corrupt” process. I asked people at NHS England if the charge of not “fit-for-purpose” was legitimate. NHSE claimed it was. I’ve searched online and checked with lawyers and found nothing to support its legitimacy. Ten years later that doctor is still fighting for their career. (And no doubt many others).
New laws and regulations to deal fairly with whistleblowing issues are URGENTLY required! The whole process is corrupt and in serious need of a profound and far-reaching review. The current system is ineffective but, more importantly, it is destructive.
A ground breaking decision by the Information Commissioner which would lead to the end of secrecy around the behaviour of judges will soon be tested in one of the highest tribunals in the country.
For years the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, which, among other matters investigates complaints against judges, has claimed it is a private independent body which is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which covers the rest of Whitehall and the courts. It tells anyone who puts in a request that a reply will be discretionary and refuses to give the information.
And the Ministry of Justice, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, if asked the same information sidesteps the issue by saying it doesn’t hold the information.
Now John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, has blown the JCIO’s defence apart by saying it is a public body and like the rest of government should have to answer freedom of information requests.
Information Commissioner backing complainants
By doing so, he is backing at least two complainants who have taken their cases through tribunals plus numerous other people who have sought to get into the public domain how many judges are subject to complaints. The whole matter is going to be settled in an appeal to the Upper Tier Tribunal after a judge ruled that the decision by the Information Commissioner has to be included in the proceedings.
The Ministry of Justice, on behalf of the JCIO, is seeking to squash the decision. No date has been fixed yet for the hearing.
The Information Commissioner’s says: “the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice (now Lady Chief Justice)are jointly responsible for judicial discipline’. The JCIO, therefore supports not just the Lord Chief Justice but also the Lord Chancellor in relation to such matters.
“This highlights how the structure of the JO and JCIO is not simply to support the judiciary, with wider public functions included within its ambit. The Commissioner further notes that the Judicial Appointment and Conduct Ombudsman, the statutory office sitting at the head of the complaints process of which the JCIO is part, was added by parliament to the scope of FOIA. In the Commissioner’s view, it seems unlikely that it would have concluded that the operation of part of this process should fall in scope of FOIA, with others outside of it.”
“Based on the summary above, the Commissioner’s conclusion is that the JCIO is part of the JO, which, while operating at arms length in practice, is still part of the MOJ for the purposes of FOIA. In light of this, it is not necessary for the JO or JCIO to be listed separately in Schedule 1 FOIA for it to be within scope of the legislation.”
He adds:” Any information request made to the JCIO is effectively a request made to the MOJ and should be treated as such. This is important in order for the MOJ to carry out its functions under FOIA, and to enable individuals to exercise their statutory right to public information.”
Judge Philip Lancaster
The Information Commissioner’s decision is very important because of its context that judges are being protected by senior members of the judiciary from any scrutiny about their behaviour. The BBC and this blog have already reported that judge Philip Lancaster, an employment judge, has received as many as 12 complaints from women who have appeared before him that he is patronising, biased and rude towards female litigants. See my blog here.
Barry Clarke, President of the Employment Tribunals in England, steadfastly refuses to entertain any criticism of his judges thereby blocking any information about complaints. And Baroness Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, appears to be equally protective.
So this ruling while not likely to see the naming of judges will be able to provide the context of just how many complaints there have been and upheld and show the scope of the problem.
From right to left Jocelynne Scutt, former Australian judge; Ian Byrne, Labour MP for Liverpool,West Derby and myself a journalist and a patron of CEDAWinLAW.
Waspi threaten further legal action and another judicial review
The present impasse over whether 50swomen should receive any compensation at all after ministers refused to pay must cease.
WASPI who relied on the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s weak findings of partial maladministration to get somewhere between £1000 and £3000 compensation for the 3.5 million women who suffered up to a six year delay in their pensions have been totally defeated and are having to restart from scratch.
CEDAWinLAW, formerly BackTo60, are now pressing to avoid further legal action and go straight to mediation with the government – hence the letter to the PM Sir Keir Starmer, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves and the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall.
The government is now facing a two pronged attack over the issue from two groups with different approaches but both are aiming to provide some compensation for the 50swomen.
The approach by CEDAWinLAW is much broader than WASPI which is only concerned with getting some recompense for the partial maladministration Sir Robert Behrens, the former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, made in his long drawn out findings even though he conceded that the women were not directly financially affected by their lack of knowledge.
CEDAWinLAW are putting forward a case that the women were both subject to discrimination by being the only group affected by the delay and by the fact that unlike men they did not have the opportunities to build up the numbers of years to get a full pensions by historic discriminatory measures such as being barred from making contributions.
CEDAW is also relying on two key points. The UK under Margaret Thatcher signed up to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1986. This body is monitoring the UK’s progress in meeting the terms of the convention – and the issue of discrimination against 50s women is on their agenda in Geneva and will also be raised next month at a women’s conference on discrimination in New York.
Secondly the UK is moving domestically to accept that mediation is a better way of solving issues across the board rather than clogging up the courts with long running disputes. All this explained succinctly by Jocelynne Scutt, a former Australian judge and a women’s campaigner, in the video below
Now WASPI are planning to do the opposite and engage in a long war of attrition again in the courts against the DWP for throwing out any hope of compensation. Now having covered the long running judicial review by Backto60 from the initial hearing to the Court of Appeal ( the Supreme Court wouldn’t even hear it) this is committing their supporters to years of waiting and a huge financial burden running well into six figures to maintain the fight.
John Halford, head of public law and human rights, Bindmans. Pic credit: Bindmans website
The scale of the issue can be shown by the pre action letter sent to by John Halford of Bindman’s to the DWP. Not only is he is asking the ministry to cancel the decision they made not to compensate the women but he gets involved in a long convoluted argument into why the women should be paid and into the minutie of the detail of various surveys the ministry undertook to make his case.. Given the courts preference to look at precedents he will not be able to escape the DWP making references to the previous judicial review and using it to their advantage to quash such an action. The full text of his letter is reproduced below.
Now buried in this is a U turn by WASPI. The letter states it would like to explore an alternative disputes resolution to solve the problem. This is extraordinary about turn because only last year CEDAWinLAW put forward the same idea and invited WASPI to be an interested party. John Halford sent for all the papers and flatly rejected the approach. Not only that but presumably on the orders of Angela Madden, who runs the WASPI company, decided to side with the DWP against CEDAWinLAW if it came to court. Again the DWP could use it against them if they get a good lawyer.
In many ways this is a very sad tale as no agreement is possible between any of the groups fighting to get justice for the 3.5 million 50swomen. which in the short term will suit the DWP who can play off one group against another. There is also no real leadership from the All Party Parliamentary Group on State Pension Equality for Women led by Rebecca Long Bayley, MP for Salford, who describes herself as a wife, mother and proud Socialist, to bang heads together and go for the government over this.
In the meantime the cohort is starting to die out which will be very convenient for all those MPs and ministers whose inaction just prolongs any justice.
But in the long term this issue, the axing of the winter fuel allowance and what I hear is going to be the biggest assault on disabled people’s benefits in a generation will lose Labour its core support and pave the way for Nigel Farage to be our next Prime Minister.
Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the infected blood inquiry
Lawyers representing thousands of haemophiliacs who unknowingly got hepatitis, HIV and Aids from blood transfusions provided by drug addicts and criminals in the United States in one of Britain’s biggest health scandals could be gagged from publicly criticising compensation payments.
A new draft contract proposed by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (ICBA), the body set up by the government to pay out an estimated £11.8 billion by 2029 ,could take legal action for ” reputational damage” if lawyers publicly criticise the authority’s actions without their permission.
The ICBA, despite its name, is not a public body, but a private contractor to the Cabinet Office, so it intends to impose a standard contract on people who deal with it.
The draft clauses read;
15.7.1 not make any press announcement or other public statement or publicise the Contract or any part of it in any way, or make any public statement about the Scheme, without the prior written consent of the Buyer [the Cabinet Office] and must take all reasonable endeavours to ensure that Supplier Staff do not either; and
15.7.2 not (and must ensure its Subcontractors do not) embarrass the Buyer or IBCA or otherwise bring the Buyer or IBCA into disrepute or diminish trust placed in the Buyer or IBCA (“Reputational Damage”) by engaging in any act or omission which is reasonably likely to diminish the trust that the public or Scheme Applicantsplace in the Buyer and/or IBCAor impacts the reputation of the Buyerand/or IBCA,
This effectively amounts to a comprehensive “gagging clause”, specifically prohibiting lawyers from making “any press announcement or other public statement” about the scheme without prior Cabinet Office approval. Firms would also be required to ensure their staff comply with these restrictions.
The ICBA is seeking requirements that could compel law firms to take specific actions or make public statements at the IBCA’s direction to mitigate perceived reputational damage, regardless of whether any breach has occurred.
One law firm said; “On any basis this variation is unacceptable to us for professional, ethical and regulatory reasons. This firm is instructed by individual clients to provide individual, independent legal advice regarding the scheme and will continue to do so.”
The Haemophilia Society, which also supports victims, is consulting lawyers about what action it should take to counter these proposed restrictions.
The Cabinet Office has told people that these are standard clauses in procurement processes for private companies being paid taxpayers money, but that they are in conversations with IBCA but could not confirm the outcome.
The issue follows negative publicity over problems with interim compensation payments to people which generated criticism of the IBCA.
An IBCA spokesperson said:
“We are committed to supporting the infected blood community, and are working with legal providers currently to agree contracts that will provide support for those claiming.
“The legal providers are not restricted in the legal advice they deliver to people claiming compensation, and we provided amended terms to clarify this.
“We welcome an open discussion with all those who are impacted by infected blood, and those who represent them.”
Years of cover ups
Given the history of the infected blood scandal which dates back to the 1970s, culminating in the recent interim report by Sir Brian Langstaff, there have been years of cover -ups. People were never informed that their relatives were infected, there were attempts to use ” commercial confidentiality” to hide the source of the contamination, and this will not add to public trust or increase transparency.
So far £1 billion has been paid out in £100,000 interim payments and the IBCA is just starting to pay full compensation to other people.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Minister for Cabinet Office, updated Parliament with IBCA’s latest compensation figures this week.
113 people have been invited to start their compensation claim
84 people have accepted their invitations and submitted their claim
23 offers of compensation have been made, totalling £34.4m
So far 14 people have accepted their offers with more than £13.3m paid in compensation
New laws will also be passed by the government extending payments to relatives of infected blood victims, which could lead to an extra 140,000 people claiming.
Head of the National Audit Office raises pertinent questions about the future direction of Whitehall in annual speech
Anybody reading the latest tranche of reports from the National Audit Office and the Commons Public Accounts Committee could be forgiven for thinking the UK is living in a dystopian world. Indeed fiction writers could use their reports as a basis for a dystopian novel or a new TV series.
The problem is that it is not fiction, it is factual based evidence.
Never in my 40 years of reporting the NAO have I seen so many things run by Whitehall going wrong. Yes we have had scandals, waste of public money and even corrupt deals exposed by them. But the last tranche of reports almost beggars belief.
Simultaneously we have had the biggest backlog of building maintenance, totally £49 billion, the largest ever NHS waiting lists for operations, the Home Office admitting it has made 1000 mistakes and wasted tens of millions on acquiring sites for housing asylum seekers, half the local authorities in England on the verge of bankruptcy, outdated computer systems without proper security protection, record homelessness, and a huge backlog of people waiting for special education places or treatment in psychiatric hospitals.
Innovate or die
It is against this background that Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office, addressed a well attended meeting yesterday in Parliament of MPs, peers, former permanent secretaries, academics and journalists.
While he did not use my journalistic hyperbole, his message was a simple one to Whitehall, innovate or die. And although the NAO is strictly non party political, there was an underlying message to the present government, sharpen your act or lose the next election.
As he put it: “we have a new Parliament and a new Government, but many of the same problems of rising demand and not enough money to quickly fix the gaps in key public services. We also face other challenges that risk causing widespread disruption, from global instability and climate change to public health emergencies and cyber threats.”
NHS needed fundamental reform
He was particularly critical of the department for Health and Social Care and the NHS, the biggest employer in the UK.
” Figures from NHS England in May last year showed it was still 8 per cent lower in productivity in 2023/24 than before the pandemic and much work is underway to address this.”
He went on later: ” In the last few months, our reports on supporting children with special education needs and NHS financial sustainability both identified the need for fundamental reform in the face of rising demand and costs, alongside unsatisfactory outcomes. This means tackling the causes of avoidable demand and allocating resources in a redesigned system where they can have maximum impact on outcomes.”
He is pleased that Whitehall is piloting AI but also warned that new technology is not the whole answer to greater productivity. He also emphasised that ministries need to employ the best skilled people – notably recently in the need for people with good computer skills and capable of negotiating good procurement deals.
He is also wanted Whitehall to concentrate on tackling resilience to protect the country. This included fighting cyber attacks and the risk of future pandemics. He revealed the NAO would soon publish a report looking at the international and domestic implications of protecting the UK from another pandemic like Covid 19 which came from abroad.
Civil servants must be less risk averse
Finally he wanted civil servants to be less risk averse and try out well managed schemes, dropping those that don’t work quickly.
His solution was summed up in four succinct points.
First, a clearly articulated risk appetite and a spread of investments, to maximise the chances of success in innovation
Second, harnessing new technology as I’ve already mentioned
Third, a culture of fast learning and evaluation, stopping failed experiments quickly and scaling up successes
Finally – and close to home for us – an accountability and scrutiny framework that encourages well-managed risk taking
” It’s no coincidence that innovation thrives in times of crisis, such as when lives are at stake. Organisations rapidly adjusted their risk appetites during the pandemic to meet urgent needs,” he said.
He pointed that Whitehall fears that they would hung up to dry by MPs and the press if they failed was now no longer true -instead MPs on the public accounts committee were now more critical of civil servants who failed to look at new ways of tackling problems rather than following safe bureaucratic procedures.
So what are the NAO doing themselves? “our refreshed strategy from 2025 to 2030 takes fully into account the risk appetite set for the range of innovative projects. We will continue to look for and highlight positive examples of innovation, including where unsuccessful initiatives have been stopped in favour of more promising ones. As well as featuring these in our reports on departments and organisations, we will publish what we learn across government as part of our programme of lessons learned reports.”
AI is also coming to the NAO so auditors can spend more time making professional judgements on department’s performance and less time on manual exercises.
Talking to people who attended afterwards it was clear that MPs and academics are well aware that innovation is necessary or we will not be able to deliver public services to meet growing demand. MPs seemed especially aware that the NHS was not functioning properly – whether it was their local health trust – or the bureaucracy at the top. MPs have already publicly criticised the top management of the NHS for being complacent.
Over the next five years how Whitehall balances the money needed for innovation and risk taking against the perennial problem of working in a public sector which has been neglected for too long and needs ” first aid” to keep going will be crucial. Whitehall should treat the present state of public services as a national crisis which can only be tackled by radical innovation.
Westminster Confidential 