As you know Wembley Matters has carried a number of articles calling for Brent Council to provide details on whether the Council made a payment to Cara Davani, former Head of Human Resources on her resignation, and if so, the amount that was paid. This statement has been made by Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council.
Statement regarding employment tribunal of Rosemarie Clarke
"Much has been written and said about the Employment Tribunal of Rosemarie Clarke and Brent Council; a good deal of it has been inaccurate and unfair.
"The Council’s normal policy is not to comment on the detail of individual cases and for a considerable time we have held to this line. However, the time has come where the Council needs to set out the facts in the light of continued misrepresentation of the judgement. We do this not because of any desire to defend our reputation, but because of the corrosive affect of untruths on the morale of our workforce and our ability to move forward as an organisation.
"The tribunal found that Ms Clarke suffered ‘discrimination on the grounds of race, victimisation, and was constructively dismissed’. The case relates to events between March 2012 and August 2013. Most of the managers and officers who had any significant involvement with the case have left the council.
"The tribunal findings are complex and centre on grievances raised by Ms Clarke, Head of Learning and Development, against her manager, Ms Davani, Head of HR. Before these were heard, she was suspended by Mr Newby, Director of Strategy, Partnerships and Improvement, for another matter which, if upheld, in our view could have constituted gross misconduct. Ms Clarke resigned and left before the disciplinary and grievance matters had been fully determined.
"The council continued with both the disciplinary and grievance processes after she left. Ms Ledden, the Borough Solicitor, considered the gross misconduct case and concluded that she would have been dismissed. She also concluded that the grievance was without merit. The tribunal disagreed.
"The tribunal drew a direct comparison to another case of a white member of staff who was suspended on the grounds of gross misconduct and resigned, where the council did not continue to hear the case after he left. Fundamentally, it was this difference in the way the council acted that led to the finding of race discrimination. Different managers made the decisions in these cases, but the findings were against the council as the employer.
"Much has been made of the role of Cara Davani, in relation to the case. The fact is that the tribunal found fault in the decisions made by a number of managers and officers that collectively led to the finding against the council. We are sorry that mistakes were made, but we do not accept that all the staff concerned were therefore racist; indeed two of them were black managers. It was not what they did that led to the finding, but the difference between what they did and what other managers in the council did in similar circumstances. The Council will not condone a witch-hunt against staff, even those who make mistakes.
"The discrimination findings relied on what is known as the reverse burden of proof. If an organisation acts differently in two cases where the two employees happen to be of different race and cannot satisfactorily explain why, then it is deemed to have discriminated. The finding was against the Council as a whole.
"We are not legally allowed to discuss the terms of Cara Davani's departure. All staff are treated no more or less favourably than they are entitled to be treated in accordance with our contracts and in line with our employment procedures.
"In the three years since the start of matters in this case, Brent Council has made great strides in relation to its HR and Equalities practices. Most recently, we were judged to have reached the ‘Achieving’ level of the Equality Standard for Local Government.
"There are few councils in the country that are as proudly diverse as Brent, nor as committed to embedding equalities in our services and employment practices. We have used the failings in this case to learn, by commissioning a review of practices and through implementing an improvement plan.
"We stand on our record, as a service provider and employer, and hope that our staff and the public will judge us on this."
NOTE: The Watford Employment Tribunal Judgment can be found HERE
37 comments:
"The council will not condone a witch hunt against staff". In failing to act promptly against Davani for her treatment of Rosemarie Clarke that is exactly what they did do.
Letter was drafted by Christine Gilbert mate of Cara Davani????
This letter should be Butt's Swansong.
Its unacceptable that a council will be in open contempt of the results of a tribunal.
So many minimisations and justifications where do we even start?
Its not often that a public authority gets charged with racial discrimination as such the result is significant. Cllr Butt or the council can't be 'learning' anything if they are in complete denial that the event occured. As such these events are doomed for repetition.
"We are not legally allowed to discuss the terms of Cara Davani's departure’.
Thanks for that, Ms Gilbert. So that’d be about £450,000 then, would it? ‘Nice work’ as Rotten Boroughs will no doubt put it.
Why this? Why now?
Is Butt just about to go off on holiday?
Have they just realised that Philip is not just going to shut up and go away?
Have they had another phone call from Private Eye?
England thrash Aussies = a good day to bury bad news?
One little point before we all draw a line under this and move on(!):
S/he says: "In the three years since the start of matters in this case, Brent Council has made great strides in relation to its HR and Equalities practices…….We have used the failings in this case to learn, by commissioning a review of practices and through implementing an improvement plan’.
What failings? Didn’t Butt/Davani/Gilbert do nothing wrong. Take no notice of that Tribunal judgement, that was all just legal nitpicking about inconsistencies by various managers who have now ‘left the council’. As the man said: ‘Fornication? /But that was in another country/ And besides the wench is dead.’ No case to answer.
But what I don’t understand is, given that we live in challenging times when tough decisions have to be made because of financial constraints, why spend loads of taxpayers’ money on ‘reviews’ and ‘improvement plans’ for systems and departments which are clearly already brilliantly run by extremely charismatic and well-remunerated Leaders?
Too deep for me. I suppose it must be what Squealer would have called ‘Tactics, comrades, tactics’.
Mike Hine
Thought Butt knew all about opportunistic orchestrated witch hunts that hound out those not in favour.. Butt Butt Butt...
My bet is you're right!
Bets Go to Pott & Co
"The Council will not condone a witch-hunt against staff, even those who make mistakes". More excuses or they just don't know what's going on!
Sure as hell wasn't written by Butt. He doesn't write his own speeches or manage his Twitter account, let alone this kind of Newspeak nonsense.
Pity they can't be done for contempt of court, isn't it.
I suspect that I am one of the people who Cllr. Butt is accusing of 'untruths' and 'misrepresentation of the judgement'.
I have responded by sending an email to the Council Leader, pointing out that now that he is finally breaking his silence on this case, it is HE who is misrepresenting the judgement. I have offered a copy of my email to Martin as a possible "guest blog", but if he decides not to publish it, I will copy and paste it as a comment below.
Cllr. Butt fails to mention that the Rosemarie Clarke Employment Tribunal case is actually:
Ms RC Clarke v. 1) London Borough of Brent AND 2) Ms Cara Davani.
In my email to him this evening, I have included an extract from an email I sent him on 28 September 2014, in which I explained to him the "legal technicality" behind the "racial discrimination" finding against Brent Council, which he (or drafted on his behalf) is now explaining to readers of his statement. I also suggested how the Council could mitigate the damage of that finding, by not proceeding with its appeal against the judgement, but instead by telling the Tribunal the true reason why disciplinary action had been continued against Rosemarie after she ceased to be a Council employee, and ensuring that the person responsible for her victimisation faced the consequences of her actions.
Cllr. Butt is fully aware who that person is, and I am NOT misrepresenting the Employment Tribunal judgement by repeating the following passage from a letter to Christine Gilbert, which I copied to the Council Leader in December 2014:
"The catalogue of findings against Ms Davani provided the Tribunal with ample evidence to support its judgement that Ms Clarke was victimised by Brent Council. Just a few of the paragraphs I could point to are 184-185 (an action against Ms Clarke 'indicative of Ms Davani's outrage') and 271-272 (Ms Clarke's suspension 'unreasonable'), before para. 302 says:
'The tribunal is satisfied that the action of Ms Davani in seeking the claimant's suspension when she did, was a direct consequence of the claimant having raised a grievance against her. The tribunal finds that the claimant was thereby victimised.'
The final example of Ms. Davani's actions dealt with by the judgement, at paras. 310-311, concerns her stopping Ms Clarke's sick pay when there was 'no procedural basis' for doing so, with the latter paragraph stating:
'In the absence of Ms Davani being able to give an explanation for taking such action when she did, the tribunal on a balance of probabilities finds that this course of action was taken by Ms Davani as a direct result of the antipathy the tribunal finds she had then had against the claimant, following the claimant having done the protected act [the grievance complaint], which this tribunal finds Ms Davani to have been incensed by.' "
Philip Grant.
The Council, including Interim Chief Executive Christine Gilbert and Leader Muhammed Butt, DID know what was going on.
Cllr Butt says: "The Council will not condone a witch-hunt against staff, even those who make mistakes."
What he actually means is: "The Council did not take disciplinary action against Cara Davani, despite her gross misconduct as proved by the Employment Tribunal, because she is a friend of Christine Gilbert and Mo Butt."
Philip Grant.
They should be ashamed of themselves!
Sure is!
A
Cobweb of
Delusions Deceit and Denials
This statement' is actually a public job reference and is Cllr Butt's final act of loyalty to his mates Davani and Gilbert. They will both be on the hunt for new jobs and it can't be at all helpful having their names indelibly linked to the words, "victimisation" and "race discrimination". If Davani and Gilbert can at least point to a statement made by their former boss, Leader of the Council, in their defence then the whole matter can be written off as a big misunderstanding blown up out of all proportion by an employment tribunal and pursued by a few of the local eccentrics.
A statement of this kind, whether by a politician or a council officer is unprecedented. In fact any chief executive worth her salt would reign-in a council leader and prevent him from making an (unmitigated) idiot of himself. So timing here again is critical. Carolyn Downs, new CEO, is about to arrive in early September and is likely to put the kibosh on any silly statements aspirations of Cllr B.
Cllr B cannot afford to clash with and lose, his new CEO - shades of Lady Bracknell.
I'm guessing the Cronies are paving their way to new jobs and need the Cllr Butt antidote to the public opprobrium that has dogged their disgraceful activities in Brent.
I thought that changes to the audit regulations created new legal requirement for local authorities to provide detailed senior pay information in their annual public accounts and that Councils would be required to set out full details for senior posts covering salary, bonuses, pensions, perks and compensation pay-offs. More questions need to be asked why excuses are being made.
Does Butt not wonder why he is not respected? He really needs to sit down and read the tribunal judgement, as per the tribunal notes, Rosemarie wasn't suspended in 2012 by Phil Newby, Davani sent him an email on 26th February 2013 requested his permission to suspend Rosemarie. Point 193.
If Butt is going to be making statements shouldn't he at least be presenting the facts. Brent got IIP in 2010 in round 1, they didn't get the first time round in 2012 because by then staff had become so demotivated. Equalities and HR practices are now worse since Butt/Davani/Gilbert. You now have less non white faces as Managers than before. You have never seen staff so anxious to leave Brent, it has become a sinking ship. I will be forwarding Butt's little article to above to some remaining staff, it will put them in an even worse mood going into that depressing place they call an office. Met with some friends who are current staff and the common theme expressed was that since those 3 turned up they have destroyed the 'family feel' of Brent Council.
Lol, looks like Phil Newby was used as scapegooat
You forgot 'Bullshit', line 2.
Brent had problems before the Cronies took over but at least procedures would be followed and staff grievances and disciplinarians would be impartially looked into. This changed on the recommendation of CD which is why our councillors have been kept in the dark about so so many things.
Egomaniacs - line 5
Mike asks 'why now?'
I have been promised a response by tomorrow (3 August) to the two "yes" or "no" questions I asked Christine Gilbert on 9 July, and repeated in my open letter to her:
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/open-letter-to-christine-gilbert-over.html
I suspect that Cllr. Butt's statement is intended to "muddy the water", so that councillors can be persuaded not to follow up on that response.
Philip Grant.
'Tactics, comrades, tactics' indeed.
Alison who manages Butt Twitter account?
Yes, Phil Newby made some mistakes, but perhaps his biggest one was to refuse a request by Brent's Audit and Investigation team in March 2013 to sign a statement confirming the verbal evidence he had already given them. This would have confirmed that he had not agreed that Cara Davani could use a Brent Council Oystercard to pay for her travel to work while a self-employed contractor engaged as Brent's interim Head of HR, and that her use of that card was fraudulent.
Why did he refuse to sign? I don't know. However, I could speculate that the fact he was about to leave the Council, under a senior management restructuring organised by Ms Davani and Ms Gilbert, and was probably negotiating the terms of his redundancy package with the Head of HR at the time, may have had something to do with it.
What was the result? Audit and Investigations had to give Ms Davani the benefit of the doubt, asking her to repay the amount of her personal travel expenses which had been wrongly charged to a Council Oystercard. No disciplinary action was taken against Ms Davani, so there was nothing to stop Brent (presumably through its interim Chief Executive) offering her the position of interim Operational Director for HR, which had been created under their senior management restructuring.
Philip Grant
Spot on Philip!
Thank you, Anonymous at 18:29 (at Audit and Investigation?).
Philip.
It doesn't need to have been Audit and Investigation at 18.29, Philip, the entire HR team had become aware of what had had been going on.
Noted, thank you, Nan.
The Head / Director of HR appears to have got away with fraud, is allowed to get away with (allegedly) bullying and harassing one of her managers, is allowed to get away with the victimisation and gross misconduct shown by the evidence and findings of fact in the resulting Employment Tribunal case, and when she finally leaves the Council "to take a career break" may well have been rewarded with a "pay off" (although the Council 'cannot legally disclose' any details of the arrangements).
It makes Cllr. Butt's promise in the statement above:
'All staff are treated no more or less favourably than they are entitled to be treated in accordance with our contracts and in line with our employment procedures.'
sound rather empty, doesn't it?
Philip.
'Employment procedures': is this all codified or is there a common law-type custom and practice and precedent element? If the latter then they'll be free to give their next embarrassment an even bigger payoff when s/he 'takes a career break'.
Mike Hine
It's hot air for Butt to say, 'All staff are treated no more or less favourably than they are entitled to be treated in accordance with our contracts and in line with our employment procedures. He clearly does not know or pay attention to other cases filed, including complaints and grievances from staff.
Exactly, everyone knows that those at the top are treated very differently to those at the bottom.
Farcical really, as such divided treatment flies in the face of Equality which our whipping masters are expected to uphold!
Can Cllr. Butt confirm that ALL staff, when they leave the Council, are invited to sign an agreement that gives them some additional financial benefit, but includes a clause which prevents the Council from revealing any details of that financial benefit?
Or is it just the departing Director of HR who gets this treatment? If so, WHY?
Brent's "ordinary" staff, its councillors and its Council Taxpayers deserve an explanation - and explanations are not excluded by the excuse: 'We are not legally allowed to discuss the terms of Cara Davani's departure.'
Philip Grant.
Is Christine Gilbert taking a "career break" when she leaves her role as (longest ever in the job as an) interim Chief Executive sometime in the next month?
If so, based on her £191k annual salary as opposed to Cara Davani's £120k, she might be getting an even bigger "pay off". But, of course, the Council will say that it 'cannot legally disclose' any details of the arrangements!
Councillors and Brent residents need to make a stand, to let Cllr. Butt know that this is NOT acceptable. I'm doing my best on this, please add your voices. Please write to Cllr. Butt, with copies to your local Ward Councillors. Thank you.
Philip Grant.
Scott, I did try to make the point about important lessons not being learned from this Employment Tribunal case at a Scrutiny Committee meeting on 30 April.
Brent's legal team and Cllr. Butt combined to ensure that I was not allowed to present my Deputation. For details see:
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/cara-davani-and-christine-gilbert.html
(including my P.S. comment of 1 May).
Philip Grant.
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