Bullying claims in Parliament up 40pc in a year
The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), which investigates bullying, harassment and sexual wrongdoing in Parliament, said it had seen a spike in complaints in the year to this April, which encompassed the general election.
The body's annual report, published on Monday, said it had investigated 69 cases in the year, up from 47 the previous year.
The cases were the result of 50 'disclosures' from parliamentary staff, some of which related to multiple individuals. The number of disclosures also increased by 25 per cent, and they were investigated at a total cost of almost £2 million.
The ICGS said all but three of the complaints were of bullying and harassment, with the remainder relating to sexual misconduct including assault, harassment, stalking and voyeurism.
Only four were upheld, with the remainder withdrawn, found to be out of scope or not completed by the end of the year.
The report, which did not give details of individual cases, said the presence of alcohol in Parliament was 'a factor in almost one out of every five complaints investigated' and was 'notably prevalent' in sexual misconduct cases.
MPs were the largest group of alleged perpetrators of either bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct, followed by House of Commons employees, staff working for MPs and members of the House of Lords.
The ICGS did not explain the reason for the uplift in the number of complaints, which came after more than half of MPs were replaced at the general election.
But it said that some of the bullying cases were caused by a 'power imbalance' in the workplace, where managers had 'abused their authority by publicly humiliating staff' or being 'openly critical and dismissive'.
'This behaviour caused complainants to feel insecure about their job stability and created an intimidating work environment,' it said. 'Additionally, it was alleged that managers assigned tasks that were excessively challenging or impossible to complete within the given timeframe, making the complainants feel as though they were being set up to fail.'
Criticism over speed of investigations
The ICGS was established in 2018 in response to the #MeToo movement and complaints that sexual misconduct was prevalent among MPs and their staff.
But it has been criticised for the speed at which it can conduct investigations, with some dragging on for more than a year and involving multiple rounds of analysis by officials.
In one case, a complaint was upheld by the ICGS and passed to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, which investigates the conduct of MPs. The commissioner rejected the complaint, resulting in an appeal to another body, the Independent Expert Panel, which returned it to the commissioner. The appeal was ultimately not upheld.
Thea Walton, the director of the ICGS, said: 'During the reporting period, we experienced a notable increase in the number of people contacting the ICGS. We received 25 per cent more disclosures in 2024-25 than in 2023-24.
'Unfortunately, this increase, the complexity of cases and the introduction of new processes and ways of working has contributed to longer timescales for completing cases. Over the next 12 months, the team will be working hard to reduce these timescales while bedding in our new processes and continuing to deliver a high-quality service for the parliamentary community.
'I am encouraged to see that awareness of the ICGS remains high across Parliament and more people are coming forward to use the scheme to seek redress when they feel they have experienced poor behaviour.'
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