Grievance procedures
131. In December 2006, the NAO reported on its review
of the FCO's grievance procedures, which was initiated after the
receipt of three complaints from FCO employees. The review found
that before 2004, when the FCO revised its grievance procedure
in accordance with statutory changes, the Department's arrangements
for handling grievances were deficient - written guidance lacked
precision, investigating and resolving grievances took too long
and management information was poor. The NAO report concluded
that the revised procedure complied with good practice in most
aspects, but set out areas for further improvements, which included:
- further refining its written
procedure and ensuring more consistent compliance with it;
- developing a training plan for line managers
and checking promotion panels adequately test understanding and
commitment to good people management; and
- tighter central monitoring and case tracking.[214]
132. In response the FCO said that it accepted all
the NAO's recommendations and was putting together an action plan
to implement them. There was one exception: the FCO declined to
accept the NAO's recommendation that it should offer expert mediation
to the three initial complainants, arguing that it had done as
much as any employer could reasonably be expected to do to resolve
outstanding issues related to cases that predated its current
procedures and that no further action was appropriate.[215]
In oral evidence Sir Peter Ricketts reiterated this argument and
added:
[…] we would never have decided not to accept
a recommendation of the NAO without serious thought. These were
advisory recommendations and in the end […] we had to take
a view on whether mediation would add to what we had already been
through with these particular members of staff.[216]
David Warren also told us:
The NAO invited us to consider—and made it
clear that we were at liberty to reject—the suggestion that
we should reopen old cases that we considered to be closed and
should invite independent mediation to resolve issues that we
no longer considered to be disputes.
It is an important point of principle for us that,
having gone through what we believe are exhaustive and very careful
processes, and having done all that any responsible employer could
reasonably be expected to do to resolve these disputes, we believe
[…] it would not be correct to reopen these cases […].
I recognise that that leaves an issue of disagreement, as it were,
between us and the NAO. However, the NAO was content for us to
respond in that way, as this was a report to FCO management.[217]
133. We
conclude that the FCO's rejection of the NAO's recommendation
to offer expert mediation to those individuals whose complaints
initiated the review of grievance procedures sends the wrong message
about its commitment to improving its procedures. We recommend
that the FCO reverses this decision.
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