Patricia Hewitt found guilty of sexism
Discussion
Minister found guilty of sex bias for insisting job went to woman
By Simon de Bruxelles
PATRICIA HEWITT, the former Trade Secretary, has admitted breaking the Sex Discrimination Act when she overruled advisers and appointed a woman to an influential job instead of a better-qualified male candidate.
Ms Hewitt, now the Health Secretary, and the Department of Trade and Industry were taken to the High Court by Malcolm Hanney, a merchant banker, after he was turned down for a £9,000-a-year position on the South West Regional Development Agency.
In August, before a court hearing, the DTI changed its mind and admitted sexual discrimination. On September 27 the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court ruled that the Secretary of State should pay Mr Hanney’s legal costs of £17,967.17. It described the DTI’s action as “unlawful sex discrimination”.
Mr Hanney said that he had brought the case on principle and was not looking for compensation.
He had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain notes taken at his interview in which he was described as by far the strongest candidate. The panel recommended his appointment, but instead the job went to a woman councillor from Devon who had been the third choice.
Mr Hanney, 52, who lives in Chew Magna, Somerset, was an executive director with HSBC in Hong Kong and a partner with the Chicago Research Trading Group in the US. He was well qualified for the post because of his experience as the chairman of his local primary care trust, the South West Regional Assembly and the South West Local Government Association. He said: “I thought with the knowledge I have of the region and my other skills I stood a good chance of being appointed.”
After the interview at the agency’s headquarters in Exeter in September last year he was told that he was being recommended for the job. Then, on October 28, he learnt that he had missed out to Christine Channon.
Mr Hanney wrote to Tony Medawar, the Government’s top regional development agency civil servant, to claim he thought that the appointment was “sexually discriminatory and illegal as it had ignored the interviewers’ recommendation”. He also filed a complaint to the Commissioner for Public Appointments. At the same time he began employment tribunal proceedings that sex discrimination laws had been breached.
On April 7 the commissioner acknowledged that the appointment was contrary to the code of practice for ministerial appointments. It recommended that the DTI apologise to Mr Hanney, but the department decided not to do so. Mr Hanney said: “The minister knew that the panel had recommended me to the post. She knew she was overriding the panel.”
A spokesman for the DTI said: “The DTI fully accepts the commissioner’s findings that we misunderstood certain provisions in the code. The permanent secretary has written to apologise to Mr Hanney. The department will pick up costs. Processes have changed to ensure this does not happen again.”
Mrs Channon said that the ruling didn’t affect her role on the South West RDA. She said that she was approached last year by a headhunter when she was the leader of Devon County Council.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,172,00.html
By Simon de Bruxelles
PATRICIA HEWITT, the former Trade Secretary, has admitted breaking the Sex Discrimination Act when she overruled advisers and appointed a woman to an influential job instead of a better-qualified male candidate.
Ms Hewitt, now the Health Secretary, and the Department of Trade and Industry were taken to the High Court by Malcolm Hanney, a merchant banker, after he was turned down for a £9,000-a-year position on the South West Regional Development Agency.
In August, before a court hearing, the DTI changed its mind and admitted sexual discrimination. On September 27 the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court ruled that the Secretary of State should pay Mr Hanney’s legal costs of £17,967.17. It described the DTI’s action as “unlawful sex discrimination”.
Mr Hanney said that he had brought the case on principle and was not looking for compensation.
He had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain notes taken at his interview in which he was described as by far the strongest candidate. The panel recommended his appointment, but instead the job went to a woman councillor from Devon who had been the third choice.
Mr Hanney, 52, who lives in Chew Magna, Somerset, was an executive director with HSBC in Hong Kong and a partner with the Chicago Research Trading Group in the US. He was well qualified for the post because of his experience as the chairman of his local primary care trust, the South West Regional Assembly and the South West Local Government Association. He said: “I thought with the knowledge I have of the region and my other skills I stood a good chance of being appointed.”
After the interview at the agency’s headquarters in Exeter in September last year he was told that he was being recommended for the job. Then, on October 28, he learnt that he had missed out to Christine Channon.
Mr Hanney wrote to Tony Medawar, the Government’s top regional development agency civil servant, to claim he thought that the appointment was “sexually discriminatory and illegal as it had ignored the interviewers’ recommendation”. He also filed a complaint to the Commissioner for Public Appointments. At the same time he began employment tribunal proceedings that sex discrimination laws had been breached.
On April 7 the commissioner acknowledged that the appointment was contrary to the code of practice for ministerial appointments. It recommended that the DTI apologise to Mr Hanney, but the department decided not to do so. Mr Hanney said: “The minister knew that the panel had recommended me to the post. She knew she was overriding the panel.”
A spokesman for the DTI said: “The DTI fully accepts the commissioner’s findings that we misunderstood certain provisions in the code. The permanent secretary has written to apologise to Mr Hanney. The department will pick up costs. Processes have changed to ensure this does not happen again.”
Mrs Channon said that the ruling didn’t affect her role on the South West RDA. She said that she was approached last year by a headhunter when she was the leader of Devon County Council.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,172,00.html
JagLover said:
This demonstrates perfectly that the only large scale discrimination that still exists in this country is against white males.
Hey jaglover, I got criticised on another thread for saying that. Told I was talking bollox, pooh and rubbish. Interestingly they didn't bring any facts to the argument to back up their assertions.
Once again I agree with what you say.
There are some people that, I am deeply ashamed to say, I just want to give a slap. Ms Hewitt is one.
Flat in Fifth said:
This demonstrates perfectly that the only large scale discrimination that still exists in this country is against white males.
Hey jaglover, I got criticised on another thread for saying that. Told I was talking bollox, pooh and rubbish. Interestingly they didn't bring any facts to the argument to back up their assertions.
Once again I agree with what you say.
There are some people that, I am deeply ashamed to say, I just want to give a slap. Ms Hewitt is one.
Thats because its basically true, but people don't like to admit it because most have been brainwashed into thinking its ok because white males have had it so good for so long.
Flat in Fifth said:
Hey jaglover, I got criticised on another thread for saying that. Told I was talking bollox, pooh and rubbish. Interestingly they didn't bring any facts to the argument to back up their assertions.
Any kind of discrimination is wrong, full stop.
I just don't agree that one case maketh a "large scale" problem.
silversun said:
Hey jaglover, I got criticised on another thread for saying that. Told I was talking bollox, pooh and rubbish. Interestingly they didn't bring any facts to the argument to back up their assertions.
Any kind of discrimination is wrong, full stop.
I just don't agree that one case maketh a "large scale" problem.
BUT - it illustrates the ( discriminatory ) pervading culture within the public sector - probably the tip of the iceberg IMHO
dazren said:You're not wrong Daz, there's only one bit I'd change in there and that's "jobs for the comradettes"
Hmmmm, interesting read. Although Hewitt's been found guilty of sexism I'm guessing this is because there is no such charge as cronyism? Isn't this just the evolution of "jobs for the boys" concept to the New Labour public sector version of "jobs for the comrades". DAZ
silversun said:
For £9000 a year he should be thankful he was turned down. That way he can go and find a better paying job!
If this guy has been an Exec Director of HSBC, chances are he's putting himself forward to do the job with the Regional Development Agency as a way of putting something back into society rather than needing another £500 a month after tax.
The council leader on the other hand........
DAZ
Mon Ami Mate said:
A spokesman for the DTI said: “ The department will pick up costs. Processes have changed to ensure this does not happen again.”
I wonder exactly which processes have been changed? I bet the only thing that has changed is that interviewers are no longer allowed to give the nod to people who should be offered the job.
dazren said:
For £9000 a year he should be thankful he was turned down. That way he can go and find a better paying job!
If this guy has been an Exec Director of HSBC, chances are he's putting himself forward to do the job with the Regional Development Agency as a way of putting something back into society rather than needing another £500 a month after tax.
The council leader on the other hand........
DAZ
Indeedy. He’s probably made his money and is semi retired. As someone else has said it would probably involve about 1 days work a month. My old next door neighbour (retired from senior position, well to do, upstanding pillar of the community, ex sergeant major type etc, etc) held about 12 of these types of post. Some were voluntary posts on committees others were directorships that paid a nominal amount. Between all of them he kept himself quite busy for an old boy!
Back OT: the story just confirms what I’ve believed is the case. I assume there’ll be no recriminations on Hewitt for this
Why do we have Hewitt when we could have Boris...?
Hewitt and her appointees are bad news for our hospitals and health
By Boris Johnson
(Filed: 13/10/2005)
My temperament is so generally peaceable that some mornings I wake up and think I have no enemies in the world. I rub my eyes, and stretch, and wonder what it is I am fighting for, and who it is I am fighting against.
And then I open the paper, and I behold the visage of Patricia Hewitt, and it all comes flooding back. I see the Health Secretary, and I see her spectacles glittering with the sheen of politically correct triumphalism. I hear her on the radio, with her bossy Aussie twang. I listen to her set out her latest jargon-laden agenda for interfering in the lives and habits of British families, and after a few paragraphs of Hewitt I am afraid I am fit to be tied.
It is this Hewitt who has come from Australia - once a land of burping, string-vested virility, a land where women would actually chase you from the kitchen if you offered to help, brandishing cups of Milo - and who now tells us British men that we are to have six months' paid paternity leave.
That's right, folks, six months: when we know that this is likely to be inimical to the interests of British business, of British men, and above all of British babies. How can it possibly be good for very young children to be closeted with their fathers, for six months, when those men by the end are likely to be suffering from such acute cabin fever that they go half-mad in an intensifying hell of spilt Milupa and perfumed nappy sacks?
But of course Hewitt is not really interested in the children, or their fathers, or business. She cares only for dogma, and in particular feminist dogma. That is why she has just been caught red-handed trying to force a woman into a cushy £9,000 post in the South West Regional Development Authority, when everyone else agreed that a man called Malcolm Hanney was the best candidate.
In a sensational ruling, the High Court has decided that Hewitt was guilty of "unlawful sex discrimination". Across Britain, in every household where there is a mildly paranoid, middle-aged, white, heterosexual male with no obvious disabilities, I can imagine that there will have been a certain amount of glee.
Hewitt blew it; she went too far, and she has been forced to pay Mr Hanney's legal costs of £19,967 - almost the salary of a nurse. But there the matter rests; and that is the real scandal. Hewitt's female appointee remains in place, and so do tens of thousands of quangocrats, across the nation, installed at the whim of ministers according to considerations of party politics, gender or simply because they are the wife or husband of someone useful.
The true scandal - and one of the biggest problems of British democracy - is that ministers appoint these people, give them considerable powers, and yet it seems that ministers are completely unaccountable for what they do once they have been appointed.
It is true that the regional development authorities are not yet as powerful as John Prescott would like them to be, and with the greatest respect to Mr Hanney and everyone who aspires to serve on one, the best thing would be just to scrap them.
But there are plenty of other quangos that have awesome powers, and none more terrifying than those in the health service, where Hewitt is now theoretically in charge. If we had any proper democracy in this country, Patricia Hewitt would now be explaining to Parliament and the public why there is an undeclared war on local community hospitals, everywhere from Yorkshire to Suffolk to Wiltshire to Hampshire to, yes, Oxfordshire.
Now that the election is over, and now that Gordon Brown is running out of money, we find that in towns across England, the Government is threatening to close local hospitals, in defiance of every promise they have made.
Did I say the Government? Forgive me: of course, the Government, when asked about this, denies all responsibility. Not me guv, say ministers, when you inquire why a loved and valued community hospital faces closure.
It is, say ministers, entirely a decision for the local strategic health authority, or the primary care trust, and so the Labour people wash their hands of it.
It will not do. It is in the first place wrong that these hospitals are facing closure, when we all know that the biggest problem in the NHS is the waiting lists, made far worse by bed-blocking in the acute sector.
Why on earth are we proposing to close community hospitals, when they are not only relied upon for immediate treatment by local people, but when they also provide a place for recuperation, and so relieve the pressure on big general hospitals?
And then there is the second and more important point. Even if there were a case for closing these hospitals - which there is not - it should be made by Patricia Hewitt. It should not be the job of some worthy health service hierarch, some beleaguered quangocrat, to explain this baffling and outrageous decision. These hospitals were by and large built and funded by local people. They have been loved and used by local people for generations.
They were nationalised by the Labour government in 1948; in other words they were taken away from the care and control of local people, to be run by national politicians. It is not good enough for those national politicians now to say that they have no responsibility for whether those hospitals stay open, especially since they have created the quangos.
It is not good enough for them to direct angry locals to write letters of protest to the strategic health authority, or to invite MPs to get in touch with the primary care trust. Apart from anything else, the Labour Government, having created the primary care trusts only three years ago, now proposes to abolish half of them. With whom are we supposed to be dealing, if we want to keep a hospital open?
No one seems to be in charge. No one is accountable. It is infamous. Instead of wasting everybody's time and money with politically correct gerrymandering of public sector appointments, Patricia Hewitt should recognise that she is presiding over a massacre of local hospitals, and that it is her job - and her job alone - to justify the actions of her appointees.
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/13/do1301.xml
Hewitt and her appointees are bad news for our hospitals and health
By Boris Johnson
(Filed: 13/10/2005)
My temperament is so generally peaceable that some mornings I wake up and think I have no enemies in the world. I rub my eyes, and stretch, and wonder what it is I am fighting for, and who it is I am fighting against.
And then I open the paper, and I behold the visage of Patricia Hewitt, and it all comes flooding back. I see the Health Secretary, and I see her spectacles glittering with the sheen of politically correct triumphalism. I hear her on the radio, with her bossy Aussie twang. I listen to her set out her latest jargon-laden agenda for interfering in the lives and habits of British families, and after a few paragraphs of Hewitt I am afraid I am fit to be tied.
It is this Hewitt who has come from Australia - once a land of burping, string-vested virility, a land where women would actually chase you from the kitchen if you offered to help, brandishing cups of Milo - and who now tells us British men that we are to have six months' paid paternity leave.
That's right, folks, six months: when we know that this is likely to be inimical to the interests of British business, of British men, and above all of British babies. How can it possibly be good for very young children to be closeted with their fathers, for six months, when those men by the end are likely to be suffering from such acute cabin fever that they go half-mad in an intensifying hell of spilt Milupa and perfumed nappy sacks?
But of course Hewitt is not really interested in the children, or their fathers, or business. She cares only for dogma, and in particular feminist dogma. That is why she has just been caught red-handed trying to force a woman into a cushy £9,000 post in the South West Regional Development Authority, when everyone else agreed that a man called Malcolm Hanney was the best candidate.
In a sensational ruling, the High Court has decided that Hewitt was guilty of "unlawful sex discrimination". Across Britain, in every household where there is a mildly paranoid, middle-aged, white, heterosexual male with no obvious disabilities, I can imagine that there will have been a certain amount of glee.
Hewitt blew it; she went too far, and she has been forced to pay Mr Hanney's legal costs of £19,967 - almost the salary of a nurse. But there the matter rests; and that is the real scandal. Hewitt's female appointee remains in place, and so do tens of thousands of quangocrats, across the nation, installed at the whim of ministers according to considerations of party politics, gender or simply because they are the wife or husband of someone useful.
The true scandal - and one of the biggest problems of British democracy - is that ministers appoint these people, give them considerable powers, and yet it seems that ministers are completely unaccountable for what they do once they have been appointed.
It is true that the regional development authorities are not yet as powerful as John Prescott would like them to be, and with the greatest respect to Mr Hanney and everyone who aspires to serve on one, the best thing would be just to scrap them.
But there are plenty of other quangos that have awesome powers, and none more terrifying than those in the health service, where Hewitt is now theoretically in charge. If we had any proper democracy in this country, Patricia Hewitt would now be explaining to Parliament and the public why there is an undeclared war on local community hospitals, everywhere from Yorkshire to Suffolk to Wiltshire to Hampshire to, yes, Oxfordshire.
Now that the election is over, and now that Gordon Brown is running out of money, we find that in towns across England, the Government is threatening to close local hospitals, in defiance of every promise they have made.
Did I say the Government? Forgive me: of course, the Government, when asked about this, denies all responsibility. Not me guv, say ministers, when you inquire why a loved and valued community hospital faces closure.
It is, say ministers, entirely a decision for the local strategic health authority, or the primary care trust, and so the Labour people wash their hands of it.
It will not do. It is in the first place wrong that these hospitals are facing closure, when we all know that the biggest problem in the NHS is the waiting lists, made far worse by bed-blocking in the acute sector.
Why on earth are we proposing to close community hospitals, when they are not only relied upon for immediate treatment by local people, but when they also provide a place for recuperation, and so relieve the pressure on big general hospitals?
And then there is the second and more important point. Even if there were a case for closing these hospitals - which there is not - it should be made by Patricia Hewitt. It should not be the job of some worthy health service hierarch, some beleaguered quangocrat, to explain this baffling and outrageous decision. These hospitals were by and large built and funded by local people. They have been loved and used by local people for generations.
They were nationalised by the Labour government in 1948; in other words they were taken away from the care and control of local people, to be run by national politicians. It is not good enough for those national politicians now to say that they have no responsibility for whether those hospitals stay open, especially since they have created the quangos.
It is not good enough for them to direct angry locals to write letters of protest to the strategic health authority, or to invite MPs to get in touch with the primary care trust. Apart from anything else, the Labour Government, having created the primary care trusts only three years ago, now proposes to abolish half of them. With whom are we supposed to be dealing, if we want to keep a hospital open?
No one seems to be in charge. No one is accountable. It is infamous. Instead of wasting everybody's time and money with politically correct gerrymandering of public sector appointments, Patricia Hewitt should recognise that she is presiding over a massacre of local hospitals, and that it is her job - and her job alone - to justify the actions of her appointees.
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/13/do1301.xml
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