Sacked British Council manager loses employment tribunal case

Angela Gibbins was dismissed from her role as head of global estates in August last year after making comments about the royal family on a Facebook post

A former senior manager at the British Council who was sacked over anti-monarchy comments on a Facebook post that described Prince George as “a f***ing d***head” has lost her employment tribunal claim for wrongful dismissal and discrimination.

Angela Gibbins was dismissed from her £77,800-a-year job as head of global estates at the British Council on 8 August 2016, after comments she had made on Facebook criticising the monarchy and Prince George appeared in The Sun newspaper, causing a backlash against her and the charity.

The Queen is the patron of the British Council, which had an income of £979.6m in the year to 31 March 2016.

An image of Prince George was posted by the band the Dub Pistols on its Facebook page, with the caption “I know he’s only 2 years old, but Prince George already looks like a f***ing d***head”. The band added: “Too much?”

In a discussion with friends underneath the picture, which Gibbins said she believed was visible only to her 150 Facebook friends, Gibbins commented: “White privilege. That cheeky grin is the (already locked-in) innate knowledge that he is royal, rich, advantaged and will never know *any* difficulties or hardships in life. Let’s find photos of 3yo Syrian refugee children and see if they look alike, eh?”

She went on to say she did not hate any human being, but added: “I don’t believe the royal family have any place in a modern democracy, least of all when they live on public money.”

Tribunal papers published last week say it was unclear how the comments came into the public domain, but they might have been passed on by one of Gibbins’ friends or been visible to friends of friends.

The Sun’s initial coverage of the comments failed to make clear that Gibbins herself was not responsible for the obscene remark about Prince George in the picture’s caption, and provoked outrage against the charity and calls for Gibbins to be sacked.

An internal British Council investigation into the incident concluded that Gibbins had, although inadvertently, breached the council’s code of conduct in making the comments and brought the charity into disrepute, according to the tribunal papers.

Gibbins took the charity to tribunal, arguing that she had been discriminated against because of her republican beliefs and had been unfairly or wrongfully dismissed.

But the tribunal, which heard the case in July, rejected her claims, concluding there had been “reckless risk-taking” and “gross misconduct” by Gibbins in posting the comments.

The tribunal document says it concluded Gibbins was seen to have bought the charity into disrepute and sacked not because she expressed a republican belief, but because “she had associated herself with a distasteful and personal attack on a small child”.

The tribunal report says that, although an employer might have chosen to discipline Gibbins without sacking her, no member of the tribunal could say it was unreasonable to dismiss her.

“Clearly the claimant deserves some sympathy for her slip of judgment, but that does not mean the decision was unfair,” the report says.

A British Council spokeswoman said: “While we recognise the difficult nature of this process for all involved, we are pleased that the tribunal has found in our favour in relation to all of the claims. The British Council looks to act with integrity and respect in all that we do to promote the UK and our position in the world.”

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SCVO criticises Scottish government for lack of charity involvement in employment scheme

The umbrella body says charities and social enterprises have been ‘sidelined’ in favour of private companies in contracts to deliver the Fair Start Scotland service

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has criticised the Scottish government for a perceived lack of charities and social enterprises among the organisations awarded contracts as part of an employment scheme.

Yesterday, the Scottish government announced it had awarded £96m worth of contracts to a mixture of public, private and voluntary sector organisations as part of the Fair Start Scotland service, which will try to help at least 38,000 people across the country find employment.

The announcement detailed a number of charities and social enterprises that were either partners or delivery partners in the programme, with three of the nine areas across Scotland involved in the programme having a third sector organisation as the primary partner delivering the programme.

But SCVO said referring to many of the charities named as “partners” was misleading, and claimed that the Scottish government had rowed back from its promises to put voluntary organisations at the heart of Fair Start. 

John Downie, director of public affairs at SCVO, said: “The Scottish government promised a brave new world in its vision for employability in Scotland.

“Its ambitions were that the third sector would be heart and centre of the new employability landscape, but instead charities and voluntary organisations have been sidelined to make way for private companies which lack the local knowledge required.

“It’s simply not good enough, and ignores the successful values-driven approach of the third sector in providing such vital services across the country.”

A blog post from Downie said the Scottish government’s referral to many of the third sector organisations announced as “partners” was misleading.

The blog post said: “I think more than a few would have been surprised to find themselves described as ‘partners’ of the winning bidders, particularly as while these third sector organisations have agreed in principle to be in the supply chain – depending on negotiations – they haven’t, as one large charity told me, seen the actual business delivery model.

“This would indicate that they’re not really partners – and they say it’s misleading to say they are.”

Fraser Kelly, chief executive of Social Enterprise Scotland, said: “We find it hard to understand how, after such a thorough consultation process, the vast majority of contracts have been awarded to big private sector corporations instead of social enterprises and charities.

“We believe that this was a unique opportunity to reshape the employability landscape in Scotland and to tailor services to the real needs of individuals to get them back to work. It was also an opportunity to grow the capacity of locally owned and controlled social enterprises and, ultimately, to bin the old-fashioned approach of prioritising bargain basement provision.”

The Scottish government did not respond to a request for comment before Third Sector’s deadline. 

Jamie Hepburn, employability minister, told the Scottish parliament yesterday that Fair Start “is an important milestone in our commitment to providing Scottish employment support which will help people faced with barriers into work, access a fairer and more targeted support service”.

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Supreme Court ruling on employment tribunal fees ‘not great news for charities’

Lawyers say the ruling that the fees are unlawful will lead to increasing numbers of ‘try-on’ claims

The Supreme Court ruling that the fees charged for people to bring employment tribunal claims are unlawful will lead to an increase in the number of cases brought against charities, lawyers have warned.

In 2013, the government introduced fees of up to £1,200 for people to bring employment tribunal claims in a bid to reduce the number of spurious cases faced by employers. There was previously no charge for bringing a case.

The fees, which led to a dramatic fall in the number of claims dealt with by employment tribunals, were yesterday ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court after a challenge brought by the trade union Unison, which said they prevented workers from accessing justice.

William Garnett, a partner in the employment department at the law firm Bates Wells Braithwaite, said he thought the ruling would lead to an increase in the number of spurious “try-on” claims against charities.

“This is not great news for employers in the third sector,” he said. “The reason is that, arguably, people on lower rates of pay were disproportionately disadvantaged by the fees regime. The third sector has a lot of low-paid people.”

Garnett said charities might be seen as soft targets for employees trying to bring employment tribunal claims because organisations would be keen to protect their reputations and therefore more likely to want to settle cases.

“It is a sector that does get taken advantage of,” he said. “Of course there are a lot of genuine claims, but there are a lot of spurious ones also.”

Nick Le Riche, a partner in the employment team at the law firm Bircham Dyson Bell, agreed that the ruling would lead to an increase in the number of claims against charities and said the ruling might result in people trying to bring claims that were otherwise out of time.

They might argue that under the old fees structure they could not afford to bring the case in the time allowed, he said, and argue that the claim should be allowed in the new environment.

But both Garnett and Le Riche said they thought the government would try to reintroduce a new charging regime.

Garnett said the Supreme Court had not ruled that any fees were unlawful, just the fee structure previously implemented.

“This is not the end of the story,” he said. “I’m sure the government will be back with a new fees regime.”

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