Two departments have agreed to revise their gender-reassignment policy after reaching a settlement with a former civil servant over a discrimination claim.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s permanent secretaries have issued a joint statement following the settlement of the case, which was brought to the Employment Tribunal by their former employee Eleanor Frances.
Susannah Storey and Sarah Munby said the updated policy “will balance the rights of staff with different protected characteristics, including but not limited to gender reassignment, religion and belief, and sex”.
“It will also build on the work both our departments have been doing in consultation with our staff in recent years,” they said.
“A well-functioning civil service is one that allows its civil servants to safely hold, voice, discuss or challenge any lawful perspective, without fear or favour. We will ensure we have a safe and open dialogue with all our staff, and we are grateful to those staff who have aided the drafting of this updated policy,” the perm secs added.
Frances was an official in the then-Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and then transferred to the newly formed DSIT when it took over digital responsibilities from DCMS.
She brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal for discrimination on the grounds of philosophical belief, sex, and disability, along with victimisation, protected disclosure detriment and unfair constructive dismissal.
Frances said that in 2022, while employed as a civil servant at DCMS, she became concerned about the department’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and that she raised formal concerns in line with civil service whistleblowing procedures.
She said, through its HR policies and strategies, DCMS had: institutionally embraced politicised concepts and language; used EDI assessments to vet prospective senior civil servants; compelled civil servants to recognise male people as women; and introduced self-identification in government premises.
Frances also said she had raised concerns about what she described as a “climate of fear” around EDI, and named senior civil servants who she believed had been complicit in significant breaches of impartiality.
The former civil servant said the departments had “officially adopted internal policies which took one side of a major political controversy, and which compelled civil servants to do the same”. “In doing so, they compromised the privacy, dignity and safety of female staff,” she said.
DCMS conducted its own internal investigations and ruled that there had been no discrimination and no breaches of impartiality. Frances later brought the issue to the attention of then-cabinet secretary Simon Case and other perm secs but said this led to a recommendation for the same process to be repeated.
Frances said she believed she was subjected to a “sustained pattern of unfair treatment” after raising concerns including “baseless negative performance feedback” and being “stripped” of her team and responsibilities by the individuals she had named. She said this continued upon her transfer to DSIT, and led her to resign and bring the claim to the Employment Tribunal.
Frances’ lawyers valued her claim at £116,749. As part of the settlement, DCMS and DSIT have agreed to pay the full amount and to make a statement committing to overhaul their HR policies.
Here is the full statement from Storey and Munby: “We are committed to fostering a tolerant and respectful working culture. As such, our departments are working together to introduce a revised Gender Reassignment policy, informed by a new central model policy which we anticipate will be available by the end of the year.
"In accordance with the Equality Act 2010, the revised policy will balance the rights of staff with different protected characteristics, including but not limited to gender reassignment, religion and belief, and sex. It will also build on the work both our departments have been doing in consultation with our staff in recent years.
"We are committed to upholding our duty of impartiality, in line with the recently issued non-partisan Guidance on Diversity and Inclusion and Impartiality for Civil Servants, and the principles of the civil service code. The code is clear that we 'must carry out our responsibilities in a way that is fair, just, equitable and reflects the civil service commitment to equality, and that we must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests'.
"A well-functioning civil service is one that allows its civil servants to safely hold, voice, discuss or challenge any lawful perspective, without fear or favour. We will ensure we have a safe and open dialogue with all our staff, and we are grateful to those staff who have aided the drafting of this updated policy.”
Writing on X, Frances said she was “delighted” to have reached a settlement in her case “for discrimination and victimisation in connection with civil service EDI initiatives”.
She said she was “disappointed that it took legal action to achieve this result” but “extremely happy with the outcome”.
Peter Daly of law firm Doyle Clayton said the case “could have been resolved quickly and simply several years ago”. He said Frances “only ever sought the application of existing law and policy in order to protect the civil service and her fellow civil servants” and that she had offered to settle her claim for £1 at the start of litigation if that could be agreed.
Daly added: “But rather than treat Eleanor equitably, the civil service forced her out of her career and spent a six figure sum of taxpayers’ money in forcing the litigation to go away. It is to be hoped that this experience will lead the civil service into a radical rethink of how it approaches disputes of this nature.”