Women and Equalities Committee
Oral evidence: The work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, HC 932
Wednesday 18 January 2017
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 20 January 2017.
Members present: Mrs Maria Miller (Chair); Tracy Brabin; Angela Crawley; Philip Davies; Mrs Flick Drummond; Ben Howlett; Jess Phillips; Mr Gavin Shuker
Questions 1 - 54
Witnesses
I: David Isaac, Chair, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive, Equality and Human Rights Commission
Witnesses: David Isaac and Rebecca Hilsenrath
Q1 Chair: Good morning. Thank you both for coming here today. We know that these sorts of evidence sessions take a wodge of time out of your diary and we are very grateful, but you know our interest in the work of your organisation and we really do value the opportunity to ask you some questions today and to continue this dialogue. So that people who are watching today know who we have in front of us, do you just want to introduce yourself and the position you have in the organisation?
David Isaac: David Isaac. I am the Chair of the EHRC.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I am Rebecca Hilsenrath. I am the Chief Executive of the EHRC.
Q2 Jess Phillips: Can you both give us some examples of where action taken by the EHRC has led to a measurable reduction in discrimination or inequality?
David Isaac: In relation to measurable impact, impact is something we are looking very carefully at, and we are in the process of introducing a new impact assessment approach, but there are many situations in which we have worked in the past and are currently active where we can demonstrate that we are doing a lot to deliver improvements in outcomes: for example, the work that we are doing in relation to our strategic litigation. We are waiting this morning on a Supreme Court case in relation to the matter of Doug Paulley and FirstGroup. That, if it is successful, will really move the agenda forward in relation to independent travel by wheelchair users. That is one particular example. There are many others. Rebecca, would you like to perhaps add some more?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: As David said, it is quite difficult to pick two or three out, but some of the work we did a couple of years ago in relation to working with a consortium of partnerships regarding reporting LGBT hate crime resulted in a significant rise in the reporting of incidents. Work we are doing at the moment with a group of businesses called Working Forward, working on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, has resulted in a large increase in inquiries about issues in the workplace for women. We undertook an investigation last year into discriminatory employment practices in the Metropolitan Police Service, and we are working with them on an action plan for improvement. As David said, we could go on.
Q3 Jess Phillips: Do you think that after the Supreme Court case disabled people’s access to public transport will improve, or do you think that maternity discrimination has reduced? Just on the maternity discrimination thing, the evidence I have seen shows that it is currently rising, not reducing. I am not saying that is your fault; it is for a number of different reasons. Do you think any of those actions that you have taken have actually reduced discrimination?
David Isaac: Yes, I am confident that they have. Clearly we would say, and have always said, this is a work in progress.
Jess Phillips: Of course.
David Isaac: We know there is much to be done. Certainly since I have been in post I have been talking a lot about the way in which disabled people in particular are treated as second-class citizens. The lack of progress we have made in the last 20 years is hugely disappointing. As the new Chair of the EHRC I am very keen that we use our regulatory and strategic litigation powers to drive change. I am confident that if we are successful this morning, it will mean that wheelchair users will be given priority on buses, which means that they will be able to live more independently and travel on public transport.
Q4 Jess Phillips: Do you expect to see a tangible change on buses because of the court hearing?
David Isaac: I do.
Q5 Jess Phillips: What should it be? You cannot say, because it has not happened yet, but what would that look like?
David Isaac: That would look like us working very closely with various disability groups. As Rebecca says, we work closely in partnership with various NGOs. It will mean a very strong message to, first of all, all transport providers, but also it will empower lots of wheelchair users. There are 1.2 million wheelchair users in this country. From talking to many of them, I know that they do not feel able either to use the tube or get on to buses. It will result in tangible change.
Q6 Chair: It is only a strong message if the operators of buses fear they are going to be held to account if they do not do the right thing. What would you do in that case in terms of enforcement to make sure that operators did feel the strength of your enforcement powers in full?
David Isaac: We are both lawyers. We believe in the importance of law and the way in which law can impact change. I am talking specifically in relation to the Supreme Court case and the way in which that can drive messages, but it sends a very strong message to bus companies and transport providers, as I said. Further, we have our investigatory and regulatory powers. I have said very specifically that we will do whatever we can to ensure that those provisions are enforced.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Building on what David has said, it is important to note that we use our litigation powers and enforcement powers in a strategic way. We deliberately look at cases where we think we are going to have an impact. Under David’s chairmanship, we are expanding our enforcement capabilities. We are, for example, adding capacity to our investigation and rapid response unit to do that. We always look at the ability to have a strategic impact. We are talking about David’s chairmanship so, to an extent, we are looking at action we have taken where the impact is yet to come.
Looking back, however, we could also flag up areas where we have had an impact on the law being changed—where we have taken cases that have had an impact in clarifying the law and have had a strategic reach as well. It is certainly about looking across the spectrum of what we do.
David Isaac: I am very keen that the Commission uses its investigatory and legal powers much more than it has done in the past, because these are powers that uniquely sit with the Commission and we must use them, because I am keen we drive change. I hope that gives you some reassurance, but it will obviously take time. I am very outcomes-focused in terms of how we drive change in relation to equalities and human rights in this country.
Q7 Jess Phillips: On that particular point, in your pre-appointment hearing you told us you wanted to see tangible outcomes. You are saying the same thing again today, which is good consistency. Can you give me some examples of the outcomes you expect to see in the EHRC’s eight priority areas and how you expect them to be a result of the actions of the Commission?
David Isaac: The other piece of work we have done since I have been in post is the release of our race report, which was last summer. We shone a light on the fact that across so many areas of society black and minority ethnic people and white working class boys are often treated very badly. We are talking to Government. I have been to No. 10 to meet with the Prime Minister’s policy unit to establish what we can do to work with her agenda and with our own to move this forward.
Answering your question, we are seeking to push Government to ensure that there is a coherent race strategy that will hopefully comprise various targets. We will look to see how we are driving tangible change in relation to, for example, education and the numbers of graduates who are black and minority ethnic who are then securing employment. Their employment success is considerably less as a group than that of white graduates.
Q8 Jess Phillips: On some of the other areas, identity-based prejudice and violence is obviously not doing well at the moment.
David Isaac: Let us perhaps talk about that, because one of the things that concerns us greatly is the position in relation to the spike in hate crimes since 23 June. We are doing a lot with various groups. I have met with the Polish ambassador, my opposite number in Poland, because of the large number of attacks against the Polish community. I am also in touch with various other groups. We are hugely concerned about what might happen in relation to an increase in hate crime when Article 50 is triggered.
To give you examples of what we are seeking to do, we are meeting with groups; we are seeking to ensure that there is as much police protection and understanding in relation to hate crimes as possible. Given our role, we are uniquely placed to be doing all this at a time when Britain needs guidance in relation to a huge anxiety that resides in relation to not just non-UK citizens and our visitors but many of our own citizens.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We have also done more work in terms of publishing reports on the causes and drivers of hate crimes to try to understand the underlying causation. I have already referred to work we have done to drive up reporting rates in relation to hate crime. As David says, we have identified the spike in hate crime as being quite a key part of our role in the outcome of Brexit. We have written to all the political parties about political discourse that we think could result in an increase in divisions in society. We are having meetings with political parties to look at that. We will be continuing to press the Government to review the legal framework to improve the situation. It is very much a key part of our objectives.
Q9 Jess Phillips: With all of the eight priority areas, I would be interested to know how the outcomes will be measured.
David Isaac: As I mentioned at the start, we know that perhaps in the past we have not been able to demonstrate as clearly as we would wish what those outcomes are. For that reason, as part of our business planning for next year we are working on a new impact assessment tool. On that basis, I hope we can much more concretely identify what those outcomes are. We will be setting out our objectives, what the measurement criteria are going to be, and reporting back, because this comes back to some of the things that I was very keen we should do as a Commission when I was appointed.
We have fewer resources, and therefore we need be much more strategic and much more focused, but to secure the support of Government and of people like you, and to be credible as an organisation, we need to demonstrate that we are driving change. We have a very broad remit, but by prioritising I believe we can focus on fewer things with better impact.
Q10 Jess Phillips: That leads me to my next question, which is around prioritising. The desire to do research and have a strong evidence base is clear in a lot of the work the EHRC has done, but how do you ensure that when you are undertaking research and analysis you are not duplicating work that could be done by other think tanks or research institutions, or in fact has been or is being done at that time?
David Isaac: I will be very brief and then hand over to Rebecca because she is dealing with the detail, but I felt very strongly—and this goes to the question of our resources but also the fact that there are lots of other organisations that do excellent research—we do not need to duplicate what they do. In dialogue with other organisations, we need to establish our priorities and what we uniquely can do.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I will add just a little to that, because David has given you a good answer. We look at everything that we undertake in relation to our corporate evidence base, and that is: Is Britain Fairer? One of our strategic objectives is to make sure that that is improved. We are revisiting the measurement framework to make that more coherent and more streamlined and to identify missing gaps in our evidence. We work very strongly in partnership with other groups so that we are aware, across the piece, of what is being done elsewhere. It is a very important part of our decision-making matrix to identify whether other people are better placed to do anything. Part of our new operating model is to tighten up our internal decision-making processes to ensure that that criterion as well as others is taken on board.
There are examples of where we might look at working with other people and identify somebody else better placed to take forward work. In health, for example, we work closely with other regulatory bodies such as the CQC. As part of our new operating model, we have looked at the core skills that we need our staff to have in order to be able to deliver in our new ways of working. One of those is stakeholder management. We are building that across the piece to ensure it is part of everybody’s deliverable way of working to ensure they are aware of the external framework. Building capacity in horizon scanning is also part of that as well.
Q11 Chair: Can I press you a bit further on that particular point? Since 2008, the facts are that the organisation has produced over 100 research reports but last year you only funded five legal cases. It feels to me that something is out of kilter here. Are you satisfied with that record or do you want to see change?
David Isaac: I do want to see change, as I have mentioned. The Commission, historically, has done a lot of excellent research. That has formed the basis of a lot of activity by the Commission but also by third parties and, dare I say, by parliamentarians. As I said earlier on, the unique powers of the Commission must be utilised, because research can be done by other people. We will shift the balance so that we will probably do less but more focused research. I am particularly keen there is a golden thread that runs from our research right through to our investigations and then legal enforcement, to ensure we are using that body of evidence right through to enforcement.
Q12 Chair: But are we going to see a change in the way you use your money? At the moment, the budget split that you have is very surprising indeed in the amount that is going on research compared with the amount that is going on enforcement capability.
David Isaac: There are a number of moving parts.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We are not here to say that the figures are not correct. We would like to see a larger number of cases, but to add to the background a bit, we are much smaller than we were by some way. Therefore, to an extent some of those figures are explainable by reference to our shrinking numbers.
Q13 Chair: I am sorry, but this refers to 2008, so this is going back historically.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Yes, exactly.
Q14 Chair: You have had a very distorted way of working, putting far more focus on research than on enforcement. This predates any changes in your budgets.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: There are also a number of reasons for it in terms of the cases you have cited this year that we have taken up. Some of it is about what we have already covered in terms of the focus on strategic litigation. Some of it is about understanding the huge amount of work that we do that obviously is invisible to the public eye in terms of pre‑enforcement work, and the amount of effort that we put into enforcement that ends up in settlement or resolution before it comes to the public eye.
We work very closely with the advice sector and with the helpline to try to build up a stronger number of referrals. That does meet challenges in relation to the way the EASS operates, and it also meets challenges in relation to the capacity and funding of the advice sector at the moment. Notwithstanding that, we are making changes. David has referred to the strengthening of our work in relation to investigations. That is an expanding area for us. We are also, this week, launching a new pilot working in the disability field to try to build up a stronger pipeline of cases in relation specifically to disability. That is partly about trying to increase the amount of help we are able to give in enforcement in that particular sector. It is also about piloting a new way of working, which we hope will enable us to build up more enforcement work in that place.
David Isaac: I am very keen that we not just adequately resource our ability to fund investigations and our regulatory work but that we give sufficient resource to do it well, quickly and very effectively, because that comes back to my earlier comment about how we need to drive change and to establish to citizens in this country that we are really delivering results. That is one clear way in which we can do that.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: One of our strategic objectives is around an effective framework for equality and human rights issues in the country. We are working under our business plan on a new project to look at access to justice generally and whether the Commission could or should be playing a different and stronger role in that area. I would be happy to send you information about that afterwards if you like.
Q15 Philip Davies: I am obliged to declare I am the unpaid parliamentary spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness. In the strategic aims that Jess was talking about in the priority areas, one of them is employment, which includes in it treatment at work, including pay gaps. According to the ONS, there is a 9% pay gap for full-time workers in favour of men and about a 7% pay gap for part-time workers in favour of women. How big a priority is it for the Commission, given what you have stated in your strategic aim priority areas, to eliminate those pay gaps?
David Isaac: To address your point about political correctness to start off with, I am really very keen that the Commission is not seen to represent only minorities or only extreme categories of citizens in this country, such as prisoners and terrorists in relation to the work that we do on human rights. The Commission is here for everybody—all of our citizens.
Answering your question very directly in relation to pay-gap work, we have, in the evidence that we have accumulated in our important research Is Britain Fairer?, looked at the position in relation to male pay gaps, particularly for part-time work, as well as pay gaps in relation to women. In relation to our stated priorities, perhaps that does not come across, but the whole area of pay gaps is something we are particularly keen to eliminate.
Q16 Philip Davies: Could you tell me what the gender, disability and race pay gaps are in your organisation?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Not off the top of my head, but we would be happy to provide the information to you separately afterwards.
Q17 Philip Davies: If it is such a priority to eliminate these pay gaps across the country and you are striving to get all these organisations to take this seriously, you would think you would know what yours is off the top of your head. If this was such a priority, the first thing you would be doing is keeping a track on exactly what is happening in your own organisation. You should know these figures for your own organisation off by heart surely, if it is that important.
David Isaac: We know that we have perhaps a small pay gap. I do not know the answer, but I would pray in aid the fact that we are going through a huge reorganisation at the moment. In relation to that reorganisation, we are hoping to eliminate any pay gap whatsoever. As Rebecca has said, once that new operating model has been implemented, we will provide you with full details. We should be an exemplar organisation; I completely agree with you. We would be unique if there was not a pay gap, but I would hope that we could eliminate it as much as possible.
Q18 Philip Davies: Let me help you out. The last figures that I have are for March 2015. I appreciate we are a bit out of date with the last figures that seem to be available. You had a gender pay gap of 1.2% for full-time workers and 6.8% for part-time workers. You had a 13.3% pay gap for disabled people. You are paying non-disabled people more than you are paying disabled staff, and you had an 8.8% pay gap on race. My point is that if an organisation like yours, which has as its top priority to stamp out these pay gaps, cannot eliminate these pay gaps, how on earth can we expect every other organisation and employer in the country to have eliminated these pay gaps?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Thank you very much. We do corporately know those figures and have looked at them, despite the fact I did not know them off by heart. We are obviously aware of those gaps and have undertaken an audit. We understand the reasons for those, and everybody here is obviously aware that the causes for pay gaps are complex. We are undertaking some very significant research in this area, and we will be publishing that shortly, looking at what we have found to be the broader causation of pay gaps generally. What will make this work unique is that we are looking at it from the perspective of race and disability as well as gender.
Q19 Philip Davies: What are the reasons for these pay gaps in your organisation?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: On a detailed basis, I am very happy to provide that information to you separately. I would not like to go into details at this point on individual cases. That does not feel appropriate. The work that we are doing is going to look at bringing about practical action to achieve change in that place. That is an important part of our work.
Q20 Philip Davies: The other thing on this is that the figures you have provided in the past to me when I have asked for these figures have been the mean earnings. I spoke to the Office for National Statistics about the gender pay gap and they produced the mean and median figures. The ONS think the median is a much more sensible measure than the mean. Why do you produce it in mean when the ONS think that the most meaningful figure is the median?
David Isaac: That predates my appointment. Those are very good challenges that I will take away and look at. As I said right at the start, we are going through a staff reorganisation. Eliminating the pay gap has been one of our considerations. We clearly need to do better. We need to be, as I said, an exemplar organisation and eradicate the gap where we can.
Chair: Could I suggest the Commission write to us on this? Philip has raised an extremely important point. Particularly given the disability pay gap over the last three years has gone up so significantly, this is something we would really value more of an insight into.
Q21 Philip Davies: Could we also have your reasons as to why you have these pay gaps? Finally, how many complaints have you had since you came into being by members of your own staff for race discrimination, sex discrimination and disability discrimination? How many complaints have been made by your own staff to you as an organisation under those discrimination headings?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Is that as an organisation or since David’s chairmanship?
Q22 Philip Davies: No, as an organisation—since you have come into being.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I do not know. I am happy to find out and let the Committee know.
Q23 Philip Davies: Again, you would think you would know these things. You are supposed to be there to stamp out any kind of discrimination in the workplace, and you do not seem to have any handle as to how many complaints you have in your own organisation about these things. It seems bizarre to me.
David Isaac: Can I respond? We are like many public sector organisations in the sense that in any workplace you cannot completely eradicate challenges that may be made by members of your staff. The point that you make is well made; we clearly need to be an exemplar employer, because we are telling other employers in the country that they must adhere to standards that clearly we need to adhere to ourselves. To imagine that we would not have claims over the last 10 years sets a very high bar, and inevitably any organisation, however well run it is, ends up with a number of those claims. We must, obviously, do our best to minimise them.
Q24 Philip Davies: Do you not think that if you are lecturing everybody else in the country about all of these things you should be setting a high example?
David Isaac: I would use a different verb. I do not think we are lecturing people; we are working with evidence to try to drive change in accordance with our statutory duties.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: It is very important to have appropriate processes so those challenges can be made and any concerns, distress and upset can be properly discussed to be able to move to a resolution. You might be more concerned if you found an organisation where there were no challenges, proper channels or the ability to arrive at a better understanding of any particular situation. That is the place that we would encourage any other organisation to arrive at.
Q25 Philip Davies: Again, if you could supply us with the information and perhaps any pay-offs you have had to make for those cases, that would be very helpful.
David Isaac: Within the bounds of confidentiality, yes.
Philip Davies: We do not need to know who the people are.
Chair: It is an important part of the scrutiny process. That would be incredibly helpful.
David Isaac: We will.
Q26 Tracy Brabin: As you were saying, you are in a situation where you are reorganising and currently you have members of staff that are on strike. You are introducing a new operating model. How is that going to improve your effectiveness?
David Isaac: We do have staff who are on strike, and obviously that is a source of great sadness personally and for the whole of the organisation. Funding—or lack of funding—has required that we introduce a new operating model. To address some of the concerns you have had about impact, we are also taking this as an opportunity to focus on the work domains you have touched on this morning to drive change. In terms of the detail, can I hand over to Rebecca?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Thank you. The driver for the new operating model does include the spending review and our reduced income, but it is also the case that we laid in Parliament last year a new strategic plan, which changes the focus on how we work and what we are trying to achieve as a strategic organisation. It also implements the results of a cultural survey we had a couple of years ago that indicated that staff very much wanted the organisation to change internally.
Broadly speaking, the new operating model obviously is looking at a smaller organisation. It is looking at a more strategic organisation. It is looking at a more empowered organisation. At the moment, there is too much that happens at a senior level and there is not enough accountability and autonomy at a lower level. We have shrunk the top team and we are looking at building up skills and ability at a lower level to ensure that staff are able to drive forward impactful change across the piece.
I have already referred to looking at core skills across the piece, which include stakeholder management, but we are also looking at leadership skills, pace and meaningful delivery. We are looking at being a networked organisation, which means we are moving away from silos and moving towards working much more closely across the piece in a number of areas. That is already enabling us to see a more effective way of bringing together skills across the organisation. We are looking at research teams and treaty monitoring teams being involved in business planning. That is enabling us to have a far more effective focus.
We have a new arrangement in relation to executive directors at a very senior level. There are three, each having a responsibility for each country—England, Scotland and Wales—which we hope is going to be able to bring together far better communication across the three countries to make sure that we are able to impact change effectively, both within those countries and also at a coherent GB level. Within England, we hope that is going to help us identify better variations within England, so we look not just at England but coastal towns, rural areas, the north and so on.
There is a huge focus within the operating model on pushing forward learning and development. That is about building up specialist skills and ensuring that people are on a proper career trajectory. We have already talked about the way we measure and build up our corporate evidence base and the way we measure impact.
The way in which we look at business planning is going to be built round six domain areas. That enables us to look at those six areas—such as education, health and so forth—with proper leads and proper planning for action within those spaces. That enables us to have fewer, better and bigger areas of focus and therefore more coherent outcomes, as well as having specific leads for every protected characteristic across the Commission to allow us to plan better for all protected strands. Sorry—that is a rather long answer to your question.
Q27 Tracy Brabin: That is alright. Going on from that, from what you were saying about the six areas, it seems very policy based, yet you were also saying you are trying to shift the focus to being more on the ground to get more effective outcomes. Currently you have 40 vacancies and you are making 22 redundancies, so how is that affecting morale?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: To answer the first question, we do need to build up a stronger policy capacity within the Commission, and it is one of the things we have noticed that we had a gap in previously. I would not say that it will be policy driven; it is more that we will bring things together so that in one area, say education, we have a strong policy arm, a good research arm and a good treaty-monitoring capacity but also good enforcement—and it is linked together for the first time.
David Isaac: That is the point: they are all coherently linked.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Coming on to your question about staff morale, at this point in time we have 14 members of staff who remain at risk. We are still in the process, so we do not know what the final outcome will be for those 14 staff. Our indications are that at least four will take voluntary redundancy, so we may be left with 10. At this point, we are not at the end of the story and it would not be appropriate to discuss individuals. We do have outstanding vacancies and we will need to fill those.
Staff morale is a huge concern for us, obviously. It is something that I, my senior team and David take extremely seriously. I have been very grateful for the support of the board. We have invested a lot of time working with the staff, going round the offices and talking to people. It is important to note that the operating model has been, to date, about a year’s work. We have been consulting with the staff and unions since April last year, so this has been a very iterative process that has enabled us to take people’s views on board and into account. I know I gave you rather a long answer to your question about how the operating model will work, but it is also fair to say that we are now seeing that coming into effect.
As one example, we have been holding what we call domain days, where any domain like education or health gets everyone together and looks at what an entire day at work looks like in that place, what our outcomes should be and what the theory of change ought to be. That has been incredibly motivating and encouraging for the people involved. We are putting together teams where people can see a bit of what the future will look like. These are people who are very dedicated to what we do. They are very encouraged by that potential to have real impact. We think that is going to help us move on together as a Commission, but it is not something that I take lightly at all and it will be something we need to work on very hard. I have been very grateful for the support of the team.
Q28 Tracy Brabin: Has the cost-cutting had any effect on establishing the routine work programme?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: No, not at all. It is about helping us to do it better.
Q29 Tracy Brabin: What activity is going to have to be cut as a result of the 2015 spending review settlement? In total—I know you touched on it—how many staff are you anticipating being made redundant?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I have answered that last question; we currently have 14 at risk, and I am expecting probably four or more to leave voluntary.
We are not cutting any areas of work. I do not want to repeat myself, but it has been very much about trying to do things better and more coherently. It is about bringing pieces of work together so that we can evaluate our output and outcome more effectively. There is not an area we have dropped; there is not an area we have cut. We have actually increased the amount of enforcement capacity that we have.
Q30 Tracy Brabin: To go back again to the trade unions to clarify: the trade unions claim that the compulsory redundancies are unnecessary, given the numbers of staff who have agreed to leave through voluntary exit and voluntary redundancy this year. Is that correct?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: As David says, we do not regard the loss of any member of staff lightly or happily. That is important. I do recognise unhappiness with that situation. It is also the case that we are looking at a new way of working, driven by all the factors that we have already rehearsed. We have a new operating model that has identified new skill sets that we need in new posts and a new framework. The most important thing is that the people who go into those new posts have the capacity to deliver because, if not, the organisation will not reach its potential and have the impact we want it to have.
Q31 Tracy Brabin: Have you exhausted all opportunities for re-training to bring those new skill sets to people who are currently in the organisation?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We have looked at this quite exhaustively, and I referred to an iterative process. At the moment, we are nearing the end of the process of looking at those at risk and seeing if there is any way we are able to effect redundancy mitigation or offer them a role in the new organisation. By way of an example, in the last round of this process, we were looking at 25 individuals at risk. We managed to identify roles that we could offer to 12 of them. In some instances they were what we would call development places, where we thought there was a gap, but we were prepared to offer the role outright, without any sort of caveat, on the basis that we thought we could develop them into that role within three months.
As part of that process, we were also able to, by way of a reasonable adjustment, create new opportunities for disabled members of staff, so we added roles to the operating model in order to increase the number of roles we were able to offer to some of those members of our staff who are particularly disabled. We therefore reduced the number, as I said, to a total of 14 at the moment. We have put a huge amount of effort into this and we do think it is incredibly important.
David Isaac: There is a difficult balancing act in relation to delivering impactful outcomes, being an exemplary employer and protecting our staff and ensuring that those who are disabled or from black and minority ethnic backgrounds progress within our organisation. We have done all we can over the period Rebecca has mentioned to minimise the impact on the most disadvantaged employees. We are not happy we have ended up in a situation where we have 10 potential compulsory redundancies, but we feel, given the lack of continued funding at our previous levels, this is the way in which, balancing all of our priorities, we will deliver change for the UK.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We are also working very closely with the Cabinet Office under the protocols to ensure that we provide the maximum amount of support for individuals. We have outplacement support working with them, looking at possible openings across the Civil Service and beyond that. We have given them training and we are giving them every help we can to be able to secure roles elsewhere.
Q32 Jess Phillips: I wanted to pick up on what you were saying about BME staff and disabled staff. Have you done a full impact assessment of these 14 members of staff being got rid of?
David Isaac: We have.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We have, but we do not have the results at the moment because it is still being worked on. This is very recent. We got down to 14 just at the weekend.
Q33 Jess Phillips: I do not know but I have been told that 11 are BME and half are disabled. I just wonder if the impact assessment has been done and whether you could share that with us afterwards.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We are happy to share the impact assessment with you afterwards.
Q34 Jess Phillips: Bearing in mind I understand people’s employment rights are private and it is a private matter, it is difficult, as Philip was saying, for the organisation to have teeth in telling the Government to do impact assessments if they are not carried out.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: You are absolutely right. I can tell you, having been part of the process, that we looked at this issue at every stage of the process. Even last week when we were looking at the stage that we got to there with 25 people at risk, we were looking at protected characteristics and we were trying to identify what possible mitigation we could make. It was that that led us—and we were very pleased about this—to be able to offer roles to six disabled members of staff at that point.
Whatever you have been told does not come officially from us, because we are still working through that. My own feeling, subject to looking at the IA, is that when we look at those final, say, 10 people, we may find that there are a significant number of people from the BME community there. To be honest, the EHRC ought to be able to do better than that. We do need to be an exemplar organisation. I am quite clear, having been very close to this and it being very important to me, that there are historic reasons for this and that the processes have been non-discriminatory; they have been transparent and fair.
I also think we need to do better. At the moment, we have already started to put in place mentoring activity, positive action, targeted recruitment processes and the ability to support our staff as they deserve. I want to see more people at a senior level from those communities, and that will be an incredibly important part of the operating model.
Q35 Chair: David, you are reported to have said that you want the EHRC to be a more muscular legal regulator. How will you do things differently in the future to make that happen?
David Isaac: We will do a number of things, because I am keen, as I have said a number of times this morning, that we are a more muscular regulator and we use the powers that are uniquely ours to drive change.
Q36 Chair: Which powers?
David Isaac: The powers I had in mind are our investigatory powers, for example. Rebecca mentioned the example of the Metropolitan Police investigation, which is the first investigation that the Commission had undertaken during its lifetime. I am keen, building upon the research that we undertake, to use those investigatory powers much more extensively, but to use them on a shorter, sharper focused approach so that we can really drive change. That is one example.
The other is in relation to the strategic powers that we have to either intervene or to bring cases. We have a number of cases currently in the Supreme Court; I have mentioned one of them that is being determined this morning. I believe we need to do more to use those very specific powers.
We are also, to give you a final example, picking up the initiative that we have in relation to people who are disabled. Because of the difficulties that many people have now in relation to legal aid levels, we are facilitating a process whereby we hope a large number of disabled people who wish to bring claims will, with money we are making available, be able to expedite those claims. We will support them to begin that process of accelerating the sort of legal action that I have talked about.
Q37 Chair: In answer to the question first posed to you by Jess about giving examples of where there have been reductions in discrimination and inequality, most of the responses you gave us were about an increase in reporting, which was interesting; I observed that. It does not feel very muscular if you are doing a lot of pre-enforcement work behind the scenes. Does that really send a muscular message to employers that the EHRC are hot on their tails, or do you think you should be doing more high-profile cases to show that if people do transgress there will be some serious consequences?
David Isaac: We need to do both. I have been in post seven and a half months. To give you an example, we are doing more in relation to initiating investigations and litigation. I hope you will see the evidence of that perhaps later in the year. Equally, the muscularity I am talking about is evidenced by threatening to do the sorts of things we are talking about. To give you an example in relation to the Premier League, we have been talking to them, and I issued a statement at the beginning of the week where it is pretty clear they are not going to meet the requirements in relation to accessibility for disabled people in stadia. I am on record as saying we will now bring enforcement proceedings where they fail to meet their targets.
I see this as a holistic process whereby we investigate where we can and we are in dialogue where we can be, because we need to be saving money and we cannot bring every single case. But using the voice of the Commission to be clear that we will initiate legal proceedings does have an impact. The reaction to the statement on Monday was that some of these clubs will try much harder to meet the targets within the agreed timescales.
Chair: You expect to see a change in the way you use your legal capacity. At the moment, the figures last year were five new cases, but more than 20 where things are going on behind the scenes. That does not seem to be using both tools; that seems to be very much more behind the scenes rather than the high-profile cases, which might force a change of attitude.
David Isaac: I think there will be a change. We must not underestimate how important those behind-the-scenes activities are, because they are often the precursor to accelerating progress.
Q38 Chair: Will we see a change? Will we see more of the high-profile cases?
David Isaac: Correct.
Q39 Chair: In terms of the use of your money, we asked the NAO to do some work for us, as you know. Members of the Committee were quite interested in how you used your money, and they have done a very useful breakdown for us. Of the £20 million expenditure last year, less than £4 million was allocated to legal. Could you explain that to me? I find that quite extraordinarily for an organisation that is there to enforce, hopefully in future in muscular terms, the law. That seems to be not very balanced.
David Isaac: It is a combination of things. As the NAO report says, we have a very broad remit and we are involved in litigation. Some of it is work that we fund, some of it is work we do not necessarily fund but in which we intervene, and some of it is behind the scenes.
Q40 Chair: But will we see that less than £4 million on legal go up in the future? Will it be more than 20% of your budget next year?
David Isaac: Speaking very personally and looking at my Chief Executive, I would like it to go up, because I believe the sorts of points you are making, Chair, are going to drive the sorts of changes that we need to demonstrate will deliver outcomes.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I am not sure how much of it is about money, to be honest; it is about what we do with the money. A lot of things we have been saying—in terms of our work to build up a better channel of cases, the way we pick strategic cases, the way we measure outcome and the way we are looking at business planning to achieve a more effective and coherent output—are much more important than how much money we spend.
Looking back, the funding issue is not the thing that has put a ceiling on the number of legal cases that we take. It has been much more the sorts of issues I have been referring to in terms of the difficulty of getting referrals from the helpline and the work we have done with the advice sector and so on, and the fact that a number of cases that you take at a lower level tend to settle. It is those sorts of issues that we know we need to work at and we are working at.
David Isaac: To deal with your point about us being more muscular, that will inevitably mean us being smarter in the way in which we operate and spending more money.
Q41 Chair: Will that also involve you having a KPI on the number of cases that you might bring in the future? You have nothing in your KPIs at the moment that suggests the number of cases we might see next year.
David Isaac: We are very happy to consider that.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We are very happy to do that. It does not reflect on work that we do not do. The legal director, by way of example purely, took on a new stream of work this year in building separate communication strategies with stakeholder groups. We have had lawyers going out and matching themselves with particular protected characteristics in areas of civil society.
Q42 Chair: It is very difficult for us as a scrutiny group to scrutinise your effectiveness if we do not know how many cases you think is good.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We are very happy to have a KPI. That would be a very good thing to do.
David Isaac: This morning’s discussion is very helpful because it enables me to understand where your areas of particular concern are, which I and the board can then address.
Q43 Chair: If colleagues can forgive me for drilling down on this for another couple of minutes, you have identified in the report that you did on maternity discrimination an appalling situation for pregnant women in this country. What are you doing in terms of your enforcement powers here today to reverse what is a worsening trend in terms of discrimination? That is absolutely unacceptable and is showing that whatever has happened in the past—pre‑enforcement and being nice to people—has not worked. Is now not the time to get tough? If so, what are you doing?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: I do not disagree with that. We are and have been doing quite a lot in that place, not just on the basis of the report that we published and obviously working with your Committee as well. Our Working Forward campaign has been about working with businesses and trying to improve practice by identifying good practice, identifying learning areas and so on, and driving up rates of concerns. We did, when we published that report, work with our legal director, so that at the same time as research was going on we had a twin track of building up a head of steam in terms of getting referrals on pregnancy and maternity discrimination and taking them to court. We did have the problem that as soon as we got involved, these things settled. That is a challenge that we find in taking those cases to court at a lower level.
We have been pressing the Government in terms of employment tribunal fees in relation to pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and pressing them to allow a longer time and ensure those fees are not a barrier to women bringing claims. That has not been successful at this point, but we have been pushing at that strategic influencing level. That has been an important part of what we have been doing in that area.
David Isaac: Chair, I completely agree that the situation that we have identified in our work is not acceptable. In every single meeting that I have either with business or any of the partnership groups that we work with, I am on the lookout for cases that are going to be cases that we can support, which will drive change. I completely agree with you that we need to be much more visible in the way in which we demonstrate that we use our legal powers. I know from my own personal experience, in relation to activities that I have been involved with through Stonewall, that is a trigger for real change.
Chair: We look forward to getting more detail from you on that, if we can.
Q44 Ben Howlett: The EHRC has just agreed its new framework agreement with the Department for Education. I am keen to find out exactly how this is different from previous framework documents in relation to independence.
David Isaac: Clearly we are very concerned to ensure that we meet our obligations in relation to maintaining our A status. We have an ongoing discussion with our sponsoring department about whether or not we could report to Parliament, as I have discussed with the Chair.
In answer to your question about the existing framework agreement, there are various areas where we have agreed perhaps there should be less control by our sponsoring department. We feel that we are making progress and we are in a dialogue about whether or not we can become more independent.
Q45 Ben Howlett: Given the fact we have the Secretary of State in for the next session, how are those conversations going?
David Isaac: Those conversations are going well in the sense that we have raised our desire to report to Parliament and they have agreed to explore that. They agree with us that maintaining our A status is absolutely essential for the credibility of the Commission but also the credibility of the country in relation to our human rights position.
Q46 Ben Howlett: Do you see any potential areas of issue that you need to flag in relation to your independence, as set by the Paris Principles, for example?
David Isaac: I am confident we can maintain our A status, but I am not complacent about what we need to do, and we need to be vigilant. The ongoing discussion that we need to have with Government about our independence is progressing well. We would certainly be keen to report back to you as to how we progress. We met, for example, with a number of other national human rights institutions at the beginning of the week, and the Scottish Human Rights Commission reports directly to the Scottish Parliament. The Electoral Commission and the NAO, for example, also report directly to Parliament. We are keen to explore, on a consensual basis, whether or not that could be a model for us.
Rebecca Hilsenrath: Our relationship with the Government Equalities Office will always be incredibly important because of what they do. This is absolutely not about moving away from that, but it is about identifying that we are different from other NDPBs. We are independent by statute and we do hold the Government to account. That is not just about regulating local authorities; it is about our work with central government. That is not just about the need to be independent; crucially, it is about the need to be seen to be independent in order for us to be credible in what we do. It is also about identifying the specific advantages of working in compliance with the Belgrade Principles more closely with Parliament, including, obviously, with this Committee, because we see working closely with you as a means to achieve our objectives.
Q47 Ben Howlett: A report back to Parliament would be very helpful, maybe not in this session but going forward. Moving on to that exact point, Rebecca, your letter on 10 January to us explained that the Cabinet Office is undertaking its review at the moment in relation to NDPBs, and you have said that you want to make sure that this organisation is distinct from others. Do you expect that the review will have any significant implications in relation to the independence of the organisation?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: We have some concerns about the way we operate that we are hoping to pick up in the course of that review. By way of an example, we have a significant amount of our programme funding—over £2 million—subject to a degree of control by the Secretary of State. We find that bureaucratically unhelpful, frankly for both us and the Department. We think it goes to an appearance of a lack of independence. We would be raising that in the course of that review, because we would hope that that would lead to a better outcome. We will also be raising, as David said, the issue of parliamentary accountability during that process as well.
Q48 Ben Howlett: On top of the programme funding, are there many other areas in which you think the Commission could improve in its independence?
Rebecca Hilsenrath: For the appearance of independence and also to ensure a smoother process, it would be better if the appointments made at the Commission were made directly by Parliament. The Chair, Commissioner and Chief Executive appointments should be made on that basis. Last year the Commission was left without a Chief Executive permanent appointment for the whole year, which was not helpful. Had that arrangement been under parliamentary auspices, that would not have happened.
Q49 Ben Howlett: That might be something we bring up with the Secretary of State at the next session. David, moving on quickly as well, just moving back—it feels like an age ago—to the pre-appointment hearings, in your letter to us back on 26 April 2016, you said, “If appointed I will cease to be involved in advising government clients of Pinsent Masons in all aspects of that work.” In follow up from the pre‑appointment hearings, can you confirm that that is the case and that the share of any profits have indeed been ring-fenced? On top of that, what arrangements are in place to make sure that this happens?
David Isaac: I can confirm that everything I set out in the letter and everything that I said when I appeared before you has now been implemented. I believe that has not caused any problem. Obviously the details in relation to my Pinsent Masons arrangements are confidential to the partnership; however, everything has been implemented and has been shared with the Secretary of State.
Q50 Ben Howlett: Sure, and you appreciate the reason that we are asking this: to ensure that, for the record, appropriate arrangements have been made. Could you expand briefly in relation to the appropriate arrangements?
David Isaac: In terms of the arrangements, I no longer advise the Government in my capacity as a partner of Pinsent Masons. I no longer receive any profit from work that the firm undertakes from its Government clients, and the third area was in relation to ensuring that, if there was any area where Pinsent Masons or I personally had a conflict of interest in relation to anybody we were investigating, we would use the conflict of interest procedure that exists. I am pleased to say that no issue has arisen. I am really keen to be seen to be independent of Government and that the Commission is holding Government to account. I can give you lots of examples of where, in the last seven months, I believe we have done that.
Q51 Ben Howlett: Just to add to that, lastly, in relation to meetings and discussions, you said you would recuse yourself out of those discussions.
David Isaac: That is correct.
Q52 Ben Howlett: That is correct as well—brilliant. If you could respond back in terms of those examples in writing, that would be very useful, in terms of an audit trail.
David Isaac: Okay.
Q53 Chair: Can I just ask a follow‑up on that? What proportion of Pinsent Masons’ business is government business?
David Isaac: It is tiny—very small. Prior to 2008, I suspect it was something like 8%. It is now less than 1%.
Q54 Chair: Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your time this morning. It is incredibly helpful to have that sort of detail. There are a number of points you very kindly promised to follow up on in writing, and that is entirely right. We look forward to receiving those and seeing you very soon. Thank you.
David Isaac: Can I say just one thing? It is very helpful to understand where your particular areas of concern are. This is my first formal meeting in relation to Commission business in front of you and I think that, from the Board’s perspective, it is very helpful to have that understanding, because it will drive particular activities and a focus for the Board. Thank you.
Chair: That is very kind. Thank you very much.