Westminster Labour said the public have a 'right to know' if employees have criticisms of how public bodies operate, while unions called for more transparency.

Westminster Council has spent nearly £1.6m in the past four years on so-called ‘gagging orders’, according to information obtained by Left Foot Forward.

A Freedom of Information request to the Conservatives’ flagship London borough reveals that the council has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) every year from 2014.

NDAs are contracts between an employer and another individual or organisation, where they agree not to disclose confidential or sensitive information. They are often accompanied by pay outs – and have been criticised for their potential in ‘paying for silence’.

In Westminster Council, £1.56m of taxpayers’ money has been paid in just four years, on 58 Non-Disclosure Agreements with current or former Westminster Council employees.

The circa-£380,000 spent on NDAs for 13 individuals from April 2017-April 2018 cost the council an average of £29,201 each.

Despite asking for disclosures for the past ten years, only the latest four were provided, with the two preceding years kept confidential due to the risk of identifying the four employees involved (Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act allows information to be kept hidden if it concerns personal data).

The £1.6m spent by Westminster Council in four years compares to the £2.4m the House of Commons has spent on such ‘gagging orders’ in the past five years for 53 ex-employees – something for which the House has been widely criticised.

At the time of the revelations, Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities select committee, called for NDAs in the Commons to become “a thing of the past”. The committee has called for a “clean up” of NDAs across the board, extending whistleblowing protections so that disclosures to the police and regulators are protected.

Councillor David Boothroyd, Labour’s Westminster opposition spokesperson on finance, told Left Foot Forward Westminster council used a ‘hire and fire’ approach for its senior officials, which could be behind the extensive use:

“I’m very concerned this seems to be a routine thing for higher grade officers – that they expect to get paid off by the council in return for not speaking up.”

He said the amount spent seems ‘a lot’ considering the council has many services contracted out (reducing the number of direct employees):

“You only need to do total cost by overall agreement to see some people are getting quite a lot of money.”

Cllr Boothroyd sits on the Audit and Performance committee of the council and said he is likely to raise the matter with officers. He added that the council must show the payments are an efficient use of public money – and didn’t see how large payouts to former officials represented value for the taxpayer.

Cllr Boothroyd said the public have a ‘right to know’ if employees have criticisms of how public bodies operate.

Unite regional officer Onay Kasab said ‘gagging orders’ were very common across local government – but that change was needed:

“The case of Westminster Council is just the latest example which is to be strongly deplored. “Generally, the majority of local authority staff are being required to sign such orders even when being made redundant and not having gone through any prior complaint, grievance or disciplinary process. “We need to highlight this very worrying development across councils in the UK. In the redundancy cases, it stops staff speaking out about the impact of job losses on services which is in the public interest. “In cases involving bullying, sexual or racial harassment it means that employers can sweep the issue under the carpet without dealing with ‘rogue’ managers or institutional problems. Often the member of staff will feel that they have no choice, but to sign. “We strongly believe that local authorities are setting money aside that should be used for vital, currently underfunded, services, such as social care, but is being used to pay for these settlements to save the council’s collective ‘face’. We don’t believe this is the proper use of public money. “This is a classic case where more transparency and openness is required into this whole unseemly process.”

A Westminster City Council spokesperson defended the council’s use of NDAs as ‘standard practice’:

“These payments are standard practice as they allow redundancies and other departures to be processed quickly and in a dignified manner. “They are by mutual consent and it is always the choice of the employee to sign these settlements, based on advice from either a solicitor or a trade union official.” “The majority of the compensation provided is typically redundancy pay, or pay in lieu of notice.”

However, professional body the Governance Institute has said that: “Many employers use these [gagging] clauses to keep alleged wrongdoing out of the public eye.”

Labour have called for action to prevent NDAs being exploited to cover up sexual harassment. Equalities spokesperson Dawn Butler tweeted:

Still no explicit commitment from government to tackle third party harassment. They must also act to protect women bound by non disclosure agreements who live in fear of coming forward. Women need protection in the workplace and this government must take action #BringBackSec40 pic.twitter.com/TpbKaA7iBF — (((Dawn Butler MP))) (@DawnButlerBrent) February 22, 2018

Liberal Democrat Equalities Spokesperson Lorely Burt told LFF gagging clauses ‘are all too often used to silence or deter victims from reporting sexual harassment’:

““Given Westminster Council has spent an astonishing £1.56m of taxpayers money in just four years on NDAs, the public have a right to demand better.”

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has also called for reform.

An Equality and Human Rights Commission spokesperson told Left Foot Forward:

“Everyone has the right to a safe working environment and no one should have to go to work afraid of how they might be treated by a manager, a customer or a colleague. “We have called on the government to regulate the use of NDAs to ensure they are only ever used at the claimant’s request, to protect their wellbeing, and never to protect the corporate or reputational interests of an employer.”

The Home Office was recently accused of using gagging orders to prevent members of the Windrush generation speaking up about deportation, while their use has come under fire in the US for potentially covering up sexual harassment. There is no suggestion this has been the case in Westminster.

In February, Westminster Council – one of the wealthiest in the country – asked its wealthiest residents to voluntarily pay more to fund support for the homeless.

Josiah Mortimer is Editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter.

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