Quango pays £200,000 to staff... for a new job title
By Simon Walters
Last updated at 10:47 PM on 09th May 2009
The Government’s equality ‘super-quango’ was in a new row last night
after Britain’s spending watchdog refused to sign off its accounts over
secret payments of £200,000 to senior officials.
The National Audit Office has told Trevor Phillips, the £110,000-a-year
chairman of Labour’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, that it will
not fully endorse its accounts.
The dispute concerns the replacement of the Race Equality Commission by
the all-purpose EHRC in 2007.
Four senior figures on the payroll of the Race Equality Commission were
given ‘re-engagement’ payments totalling £200,000, despite also being
paid more than before for doing their same jobs as ‘consultants’.
The four even stayed at their old desks and had the same office
telephone numbers.
They were being paid for up to a year until other staff raised concerns.
A well-placed source said: ‘The transition period in 2007 was frantic.
Experienced people were needed to make sure it was a success.’
As head of both bodies, Mr Phillips was responsible for the transition.
The challenge from the Audit Office could mean the EHRC will be asked to
pay the money back.
It is the latest controversy to hit Mr Phillips and the EHRC, which in
its first two years has spent £120million of public money – including
bumper staff pay rises of up to 25 per cent.
In March, the EHRC was rocked by the resignation of three of its top
officials within a week. One of those who quit, veteran former anti-
apartheid campaigner Kay Hampton, said the EHRC was ‘being run by fear
and paranoia’.
Mr Phillips was accused of a conflict of interest last year after The
Mail on Sunday disclosed how he was paid by Channel 4 for giving advice
following the Celebrity Big Brother racism scandal involving Indian
actress Shilpa Shetty.
Critics said the role was at odds with his duty as the Government’s
equality chief to make businesses and public bodies obey anti-
discrimination laws.
There is growing speculation over whether Mr Phillips will be
reappointed when his 31?2-day-per-
September.
Mr Phillips’s predecessor as Race Equality Commission chairman, Lord
Herman Ouseley, told The Mail on Sunday he had received complaints from
EHRC staff who were ‘disillusioned with the organisation’.
A spokesman for Mr Phillips declined to comment.
Http://www.dailymai
200-000-staff-
Posts
