Amyas Morse, the head of the National Audit Office, said
today:
"The Equality and
Human Rights Commission was established 18 months before it became
operational, to enable a smooth transition from the three
predecessor organizations. But delays in bringing in resources
sufficiently quickly meant that, when it started doing its job, it
lacked more than half of its complement of directors, and made the
mistake of re-employing some senior staff from predecessor bodies
without authority.
"The shortage of senior staff weakened EHRC’s ability to develop a
clear business strategy, agree an organisational design and ensure
effective operational management was in place. These problems could
have been avoided if the transition from the previous equality
commissions had been better planned. The EHRC has since made
welcome progress in improving its controls and
governance."
The Comptroller and Auditor General has
qualified the accounts of the Equality and Human Rights Commission
(EHRC) because the EHRC re-engaged, without Treasury authority,
seven former senior employees of the former Commission for Racial
Equality who had left that body under a voluntary early severance
scheme.
The EHRC, established in April 2006 and
operational from the beginning of October 2007, took over the
responsibilities of three ‘legacy’ equality Commissions: the
Commission for Racial Equality; the Disability Rights Commission;
and the Equal Opportunities Commission. The EHRC faced difficulties
from the beginning as it did not have enough staff to plan and
manage the start up effectively.
As at 1 October 2007, it had a shortfall of
140 staff out of an agreed complement of 525, with particular
problems at senior staff level - with only 10 of the agreed
complement of 25 directors in place. The severity of the shortfall
arose partly because some 180 staff left the legacy commissions
under voluntary early severance programmes. The EHRC had little
influence over which legacy Commission staff left under these
schemes, and to try and resolve some of its key staffing
difficulties it re-engaged without a break in service seven staff
members who had left under the voluntary exit schemes.
The EHRC incurred costs of £629,276 in respect
of the severance costs of these individuals, but, on returning to
the Commission, these staff received between them consultancy fees
of £323,708. The Treasury had not authorised in advance the
payments to re-engage these staff, and refused to do so
retrospectively because it did not consider that the payments
represented value for money. In particular, the Treasury expressed
concern about the level of the salaries paid to the re-engaged
staff and raised the possibility that the re-engaged staff should
have repaid their severance payments.