One of the leading figures in setting up parliament’s independent complaints process has told Coffee House she is worried it will ‘fall into disrepute’ and that key measures designed to crack down on harassment and bullying are not being implemented.
Andrea Leadsom was Leader of the House of Commons when the ‘Pestminster’ scandal broke in 2017 and worked on a cross-party basis to set up the Independent Complaints and Grievances Scheme. She is concerned that the reputation of the scheme is already struggling, as complainants find their cases are taking too long to be resolved or are receiving conflicting advice. She said:
It was quite common every day or so for someone to come up to me and say, ‘such a brilliant thing you’ve done,’ but when I recently asked someone I know who has made a complaint, they said ‘there was just no point’.
Leadsom says that the cross-party group that came up with the scheme had wanted management training for MPs to be compulsory by this stage.
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