Director's responsibility in an RTM

[nyt]

I'm a director of an RTM looking after a residential block.

We have a managing agent (MA) looking after the building day-to-day.
The MA employs (our) staff and re-bills us for them.
The MA notified us that one of our staff had been suspended while non-trivial issues were investigated.
The staff member denied the allegation but resigned before the investigation was finished.
The staff member was in a very trusted position.

These things happen, I guess, but it was unfortunate as their performance at work had previously been fine.

The issue is that there is an intent on the RTM board to re-employ the staff member directly, rather than through the MA.
This seems risky to me as should the staff member do something untoward in the future then the board would have to admit that they had re-employed them knowing that there were allegations outstanding.

We have the usual director's' insurance but I'm trying to understand whether we would be taking on any extra liability should we re-employ this person?

Thanks for any help.

Edited by nyt on Monday 20th March 08:10

[nyt]

Jim - I wish that we could.

The MA will not give us details because of employee confidentiality (the staff member was employed directly by them).

The staff member just denies everthing

[nyt]

LF5335 said:

Any chance you could be clearer on who was employed by who when and when resignations / suspensions etc occurred. I can’t work out definitively who was working for whom and when allegations surfaced etc.

It doesn’t t need to be specific dates just a bit clearer.

I'll try - I'm trying to be a little circumspect for obvious reasons.


The board are not aware of precise timing, but the incident(s) likely took place in January.

Our staff are currently employed by the MA and re-charged. This is fairly usual in residential property.
The staff member was therefore an employee of the MA at the time of the allegations - though permanently at our site and working only for us.
As I said, the staff member has since resigned and is unemployed

Because the staff member was their employee at the time of the alleged incidents took place, the MA are unable to give us details of the offences, other than to say that they were serious.

[nyt]

Collectingbrass said:

When you say "Our staff" do you mean dedicated allocation of employees of the MA?

Yes, employees are allocated to us and only work at out site.

I totally agree with your other concerns.

[nyt]

Mr Whippy said:

Is it common for MA's to withhold this kind of information from the RTM?

Don't they have a duty of care as part of their contract to you, to provide information that might make the decision you're now facing clearer.

Or is an MA and RTM relationship essentially opaque?

The MA believes that they are not at liberty to release details either because of confidentiality or, possibly, not wanting to be sued by the employee should the allegations be false.

I can see their point. I wouldn't have expected full details of the allegation and investigation.

[nyt]

quinny100 & Mr W,

These are ongoing discussions - nothing is settled yet.
I agree with your sentiments but I'm in the minority.