Guardian - EHRC staff leaking against Baroness Falkner again!

[GreenUp]

Haven't seen a thread on this yet. This article was in the Guardian yesterday. "Senior staff" at the EHRC are continuing their bullying campaign leaking against Baroness Falkner again.

These staff are complaining they are being made to look bad in the press even though they are the people who leaked to C4 News in the first place. It's complete DARVO. Some of the complaints from the (much fuller) article....

"While there are internal concerns about the handling of trans issues, EHRC sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian those had been wrongly – and in their view deliberately – conflated with the allegations against the chair.

One said: “We’re being called trans activists to overshadow what this is all about. Of course we have major concerns about our positions on trans [issues] and the letter that we shared with government but it’s much bigger than that.” They said the wider problem was “a lack of independence, impartiality” in the EHRC’s work.

A senior EHRC insider concurred. They said that under Falkner the power of the 12-person board had been concentrated “to take forward whichever agenda they wish to take forward”.

They added: “It does extend beyond the gender recognition and trans rights/women’s rights issues – there have been issues around how they’ve handled complaints of race discrimination.

“The governance issues are about the board taking complete control and completely changing the way that the organisation operates – there’s huge overstep. The way the board is operating now is more like a private-sector organisation where there’s an enormous amount of power concentrated in the chair.

“And she and others – but mostly her – are overstepping and getting involved in things that are properly the role of the senior management team and chief executive. It’s really worrying.”

Others the Guardian spoke to variously described the commission as having been “captured” politically and made a “tool of the culture wars”, with an agenda “based on what is useful to the Conservative government”."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/06/ehrc-discord-deepens-after-inquiry-into-complaints-against-chair-paused

It strikes me as being unrealistic that their complaint seems to be about Baroness Falkner, but the decisions are being made by a “twelve person board”. One of the decisions they mentioned as being unacceptable was seemingly unanimous. Is she supposed to have forced them all over to her way of thinking?

Time for a Royal Commission into the Civil Service. They have a code of practice which is constantly being infringed and as a major unionised workforce, the union guidance and codes of practice will be inculcated into work ethics. Many have voted that TWAW and we see that as a political slogan, a misogynistic slogan....where the impartiality?

Why is it that when Falkner’s allies leak information favourable to her it is considered whistleblowing, but when her opponents leak information it is considered leaking?

Why is it that people are complaining of the organisation being captured, when the likes of Liz Truss made it very clear what they intended when putting people like Falkner in top jobs?

Sorry, until you can explain your beliefs, any contribution from you is meaningless

An organisation being led by the board? Whatever next??

😱

these people need a good stint in the private sector

The EHRC isn’t part of government. It’s a Non Departmental Public Body. NDPBs are created by statute to be at arms length from government, in order to carry out functions in a way that is seen to be independent of politics. It’s not part of the civil service.

Two minutes of googling led me to Schedule 1 of the Equality Act 2006 which sets out the governance arrangements of the EHRC. I wonder whether the Guardian’s “sources” have read it.

The Commision can delegate its functions. Functions can be delegated to its staff. Or to a Commissioner.

It is fair to say though that, as part of governance best practice, there should be a distinction between the role of the CEO and staff v. the role of the board. An important function of a board is scrutiny of the activities of the staff. The board should be setting the strategic direction of the organisation and then monitoring whether the staff are implementing that effectively, with significant decisions requiring board sign off. An effective board should never be merely a rubber stamp. But at the same time, a board that is getting involved in minutiae probably isn’t as effective as it could be.

There may be circumstances though, where an organisation has become dysfunctional, and a period of micro management is needed to get things back on track. Classically that process would see an external review, some staff departures, some “OD” work and a culture change / staff training programne.

This sounds like dummy spitting the way it has been written up in the guardian. I don’t doubt there may be cause for concern in a very poor working atmosphere. However, how much of that atmosphere is derived from activist staff members, from the change in direction from a previously ‘activist’ led organisation and from actual poor treatment? That we might never know.

It seems pretty clear that the EHRC was politically captured in one very narrow direction previous to Baroness Falkner.

Any movement away from that position is now being cast as 'politically motivated'.

It's all politically motivated, as far as I can see. What we have is the fiction that one certain political viewpoint (TWAW, etc) is 'objective' and 'apolitical'. Which is obvious bollocks.

'the EHRC has not defended them against the narrative that they are “ultra-woke trans activists”.'

Well, is it true?

Those who remain are stuck in what one called the “worst atmosphere of anywhere I have worked”.

I have to admit I snort laughed at this.

They came across as fitting the description Arabella. I wonder which words they disagree with in particular, ‘ultra’, ‘woke’, ‘trans’ or ‘activist’?

'We stand with our staff who have been accused of being ultra woke trans activists. We assure you they are neither woke nor activists'.

It sounds like a good thing that many of the staff are quitting, perhaps they can be replaced by less politically biased employees. I wonder how hard they are to replace - are they mostly lawyers or or something?

Could the “investigation” provide the impetus for an organisational culture change?

The Guardian seem to be framing the response of "allies of Falkner" as the "damaging leaks". Almost as if it coming before the C4 broadcast sabotaged the C4 report! (Rather than the C4 broadcast compromising the internal inquiry). What the sequence of events actually highlights is that C4 knew before broadcast that there was another side to it - one they decided not to report.

C4 can't say they weren't aware of those alternative views. It also sounded like they had such views directly themselves from the 'more than 20' staff they spoke to. But again decided against any semblance of balance.

I do agree the enquiry needs to continue. I think it needs to widen its scope.