Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread (follow on from Chair of SEEN is being sued)

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5031904-the-chair-of-seen-is-being-sued
TT substack: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/tempest-vs-defra-and-rural-payments

Tempest (a TW) is claiming discrimination, harassment and/or victimisation on grounds of gender reassignment. Central to the claim is the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN or IP). SEEN has been granted right to intervene. Parts of the original claim against the co-chair of SEEN (Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley) and another party (Andreas Mueller) were struck out or narrowed. Another claimant, PQ, is no longer part of the case.

The hearing is in Leeds; the number of online observers has been limited by the court due to "capacity" and posters are reporting that requests for links are being declined on those grounds.

Also to note that Elspeth still has a garden in need of seeds and water to support the ability of SEEN to be an intervenor in this case.

Sorry, last comment before I finish my break for a Solero - AL reminds me strongly of Matt Hancock, in both appearance and voice, albeit with a heavy dose of vocal fry. It is quite distracting!

I read Tony Hancock then, and I can totally see him playing the part of this pub bore/trainspotter of a man. 😂

Does ST actually need to be on Yammer to do his job? Is it necessary to have access to it to complete assignments/reports etc?

Jeepers. You can imagine the women who were in those groups now realising they were being ‘observed’ by the Complainant in this case. Maybe other men also there for whatever reason they wanted such an ‘experience’.

Now there is another whole set of civil servants who might feel in line for being off sick at the thought of the scenario.

TT says he said "ANd SEEN posts are not necessarily in their own group - so I might see them - so, convos in I think it wsa menopause / breastfeeding groups - nothing to do with SEEN but they post - and I still get notifications, I haven't been removed form everything, which is astounding. "

Interesting that he thinks breastfeeding and menopause are nothing to do with SEEN.

What a wild ride. I knew it was bonkers but he takes it to a level I didn’t know existed.

In the medium of a Venn diagram that's two circles with zero intersection.

Menopause group? Reason for joining? Age, hormones, blah blah. TRA bollocks.

Breastfeeding group? 😳

Sorry I misunderstood.

I agree it’s unusual for no one to be posting about this.

Especially in bloody DEFRA which is widely despised by many, many farmers. Notorious for not having a clue, late payments and gormless queries,

We've got NC on Tuesday? Splendid! I can't wait to hear what questions she puts to this one, though sadly I'll have to catch up after work so will miss any live reporting.

Hopefully it means they’re not impressed.

Yeah, I had hoped that there could be some reading of the groups that meant the breastfeeding part was incidental but no, can't make it work

And deeply self-indulgent.
Just grow the fuck up, and behave like an adult.

A lot of people will read about this tribunal and think, 'My bloody taxes were being used to let this individual doss around for months...'
Unfortunately it doesn't do the Civil Service any favours either.

Samantha Tempest was outraged that Defra IT wouldn’t block access to Mumsnet on work computers, and it was disgusting that colleagues could mention work on MN. Nobody challenged him that MN was being accessed through work computers, of course they weren’t. I’m sure people have computers and phones and iPads at home 🙄

They're really not putting their best upfront are they.
And thank goodness for that.

All known knowns - harassment
All unknown knowns = harassment
All known unknowns = harassment
All unknown unknowns = harassment.
That should cover it.

What if these are the brightest and best👀

i dont think anyone said that access to mumsnet was banned from Defra servers though? I'd rather like that to happen, it's far too easy to spend hours on mumsnet. Would kind of like someone to have looked at STs computer history to see how much time he was spending on looking to be offended, including time spent on mumsnet and X.

My thoughts exactly. He's seems like the kind who goes looking for grievances, and so wouldn't be able to help himself.

Was thinking from a management pov, if you had someone who's MH was seriously so very fragile that they could not work and function with any jar to their personal reality and beliefs even being suspected of existing with a risk of potential exposure... reasonable adjustments get pretty difficult, to put it politely. It looks like WFH was tried, with exposure limited as much as possible on computer access, and instructions to avoid going looking for information that might be overwhelming, but even so the issue being raised now is the mere knowledge of on computers and among other employees this exists at all was intolerable. Surely this is the point of reasonability moving towards being just too ill to work in this setting?

I might be hallucinating here but is there a poster called tempest something or other, maybe a coincidence

No he just said IT did nothing to prevent people posting on Mumsnet from work computers, which in his mind was terribly transphobic of IT and proved everyone wanted him dead (only slightly more hyperbolic than his testimony)

To explain why the CS, NHS, public sector etc. have so many diversity groups.

The CS was created around c1850, NHS created in 1948. They predate any type of equality legislation as we know it.

The CS is required to deliver the business of the government of the day. The expectation is it not only acts lawfully but also leads the way in employment terms. CS Departments know ETs will hold them to a higher standard of behaviour as an employer and hate it if Case Law (EATs) is created because they got the law it wrong.

Departments need a way to effectively consult employees on new and revised policies, some are required as part of legislative changes. The PSED applies a duty to consider protected characteristics (pc). So in addition to TUs, Diversity Groups were set up to allow the business (HR ) to consult with employees who had relevant personal experience to ensure policies and procedures were inclusive and where possible removed barriers.

A good example is Fire Evacuation procedures in a tower block. You need to think about deaf employees not hearing an alarm, wheel chair users, employees with mobility and sight impairments, pregnant women and potentially short term impairments like a broken leg etc. who may not be able to walk down 14 flights of stairs. Diversity Groups can add a lot of value to the development of a policy.

The problem is the number of groups has expanded to make it unmanageable and time consuming. The Gender Reassignment pc has also disproportionally absorbed time and resource.

Nope. If these are the brightest and the best then who's pushing the Conversion Bill? Tempest, Upton, these are just the professional patsies, slightly higher rank than the foot soldiers. This is why no one's talking about Tempest, if reports from Reddit are accurate. He's making them all look bad. A liability.