EHRC: Ineffective, flawed, and very expensive
Thursday, 4 March 2010 12:01 AM
By Ian Dunt
A damning new report has severely criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and highlighted the shocking amounts of public money squandered during its creation.
Today's report by the Commons public accounts committee found that when the EHRC was created it was not in a position to fulfil its function, despite eventually costing £39 million.
"It was, to say the least, not ready for business," said Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee.
The commission took up its new powers and those of the former Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission (the Legacy Commissions), on October 1st 2007.
There were three changes of sponsor department in the month immediately before its launch, but MPs reserved particular scorn for the way the exit scheme was handled when the various groups which were amalgamated into the EHMR.
The then-sponsor department, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the transitional team offered employees of the previous equality groups an early exit scheme.
"The Commission had no control over which staff transferred to it or who left under the scheme, leaving it 140 people short and with skills gaps in key areas," the report found.
Some of these gaps were filled by bringing back former employees of the Commission for Racial Equality as consultants, even though they had all received severance payments through the early exit scheme.
"The process by which this new body had been established, at a total cost to the taxpayer of nearly £39 million, was patently flawed," Mr Leigh said today.
"Symptomatic of this was that, before its launch, the commission had no control over which staff left the former commissions through an early exit scheme, costing some £11 million, leading to a large loss of staff with valuable skills.
"The re-engagement as consultants by the commission of seven senior staff who had taken early severance was carried out without competition or formal approval," he added.
"The taxpayer was hit twice: some £630,000 for their severance packages and nearly £340,000 to rehire them."
The Commission then made an additional payment of £15,000, which it has not adequately explained, to one of the re-engaged consultants. It has also breached its pay remit and staff complement levels.
"This is not the way that this committee expects public bodies to be run," the report concludes.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the EHRC, comes in for particular criticism.
"The commission's chairman recognised his personal share of responsibility and told us that the Board did not exercise the level of scrutiny it might have done, despite early warning signs being clearly visible," Mr Leigh said.
The finding could not come at a worse time for Mr Phillips, who is facing a parliamentary investigation into his attempts to speak to members of the joint human rights committee before it published a report into him.
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