Raab case shows need for reform of bullying claims handling, union rep says

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Rishi Sunak is being urged to set up a new body to assess future bullying claims against ministers after civil servants were left disillusioned over the Dominic Raab investigation.

Senior Whitehall staff want the prime minister to allow an independent organisation to assess claims of wrongdoing against ministers, a Ministry of Justice union rep said.

The calls follow repeated disappointments in the grievance procedures against ministers in government workplaces.

The prime minister alone will decide whether his deputy and justice secretary broke the ministerial code, after multiple complaints about Raab were made across three ministerial departments.

Under the bullying inquiry’s terms and conditions, the independent investigator Adam Tolley KC will only “establish the specific facts” surrounding the claims, which Sunak will then rule on.

The former home secretary Priti Patel was allowed to keep her job by Boris Johnson despite a formal inquiry finding evidence she had bullied her staff.

Jawad Raza, an FDA national officer who represents senior civil servants in the MoJ and parliament, said a new, fully independent process must be established if trust is to be rebuilt across Whitehall.

“At present, the prime minister has to give permission for an investigation into a minister to commence and then pass judgment on the facts.

“Can he really be a fully independent arbiter, especially when it is someone who has political value to him?

“In this case, the PM is being asked to pass judgment on a close political ally. It needs to be changed,” he said.

Raza said the process should be overhauled, and pointed to the establishment in parliament of an independent grievance scheme in 2018, after allegations of harassment and bullying against MPs.

“Our members want to have confidence in the mechanism, have the ability to raise a concern and know that they can have confidence in that process and for that process to be looked at independently.

“In the House of Commons, MPs once sat in judgment over one another, but we now have an independent complaints and grievance scheme.

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“If there is an investigation in parliament and a case to answer then the independent expert panel would look at that.

“Ultimately, that has stopped MPs being able to mark their own homework.

There needs to be a similar option for civil servants complaining against ministers,” he said.

Raab was sacked as justice secretary and deputy prime minister by former PM Liz Truss when she took power in September.

But the Esher and Walton MP, who ran Sunak’s failed leadership campaign over the summer, was reappointed to both roles by Sunak following his election as Conservative leader by the party’s MPs.

The complaints about his past behaviour first emerged in the Guardian. Multiple sources claimed Raab had created a “culture of fear” at the Ministry of Justice.