Dido Harding's appointment to English public health body ruled unlawful

The appointment of Dido Harding as interim chair of the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) has been ruled unlawful by the High Court of England and Wales. The infamous Queen of Carnage – a moniker she earned after presiding over TalkTalk during its catastrophic 2015 cyber-attack which cost around £42m and saw 157, …

[Anonymous Coward]

Guilty of not doing a equality report

the claim succeeded in arguing there had been a breach of public sector equality duty, that is, "the obligation, in the exercise of public functions, to have due regard amongst other matters to the need to eliminate discrimination and to advance equality of opportunities."

The court found "there is no evidence from anyone saying exactly what was done to comply with the public sector equality duty when decisions were taken on how each appointment was to be made."

So during a pandemic and a crumbling health care system the government appointed someone in haste and are now getting into trouble for not doing a proper equality report.

Pathetic.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Can you think of a better time that "during a pandemic and a crumbling health care system" to appoint people with better qualifications than "friend of a friend of the Prime Minister"?

Following good equality and diversity practice in making appointments is not about getting dud people with the right skin colour / disability status / gender / sexuality in post; it's about making sure that good people with the wrong skin colour / disability status / gender / sexuality are not kept out.

[JimboSmith]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Heard from someone recently in the NHS who said Kate Bingham was a really good appointment whatever her connections. She was part of the reason we were doing so well with vaccines in this country. Don’t remember Private Eye having a go at her either. Baroness (Dido) Hardup on the other hand……..

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Although a 'Venture Capitalist', according to Wikipedia Kate Bingham:

" ... was born in London, the only daughter of the barrister and judge Tom Bingham (later Lord Bingham of Cornhill) and Elizabeth (née Loxley) and the eldest of their three children.[4] She attended St Paul's Girls' School, London,[5] before going on to study at Christ Church, Oxford, where she graduated with a first-class degree in Biochemistry (MA)." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Bingham)

So she at least had some genuine understanding of biochemistry and vaccination requirements. Whereas Baroness Dido Harding is another PPE graduate:

"She then graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Magdalen College, Oxford,[7] where she studied under Vernon Bogdanor and alongside David Cameron,

...

Upon graduating in 1988 she joined the management consultancy McKinsey & Company." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_Harding)

So as far as I am concerned Harding's never actually had a proper job. (Apologies to all those wonderful McKinsey and Company consultants out there, but I've never had any joy or benefit, and quite a lot of pointless pain form McKinsey's 'advice'.). She has always just been telling other people what to do. And her record at TalkTalk was not good.

/Cynic Alert:

But I guess that even this government every now and then has to appoint someone competent, if only by accident.

/End Cynic Alert

[Outski]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

So she at least had some genuine understanding of biochemistry and vaccination requirements.

Not just that, most of Bingham's time in venture capital has been in pharmaceuticals, particularly vaccines, so I'd say she was exceptionally well qualified, a real unicorn in terms of this government's normal practice of hiring friends of friends.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/kate-bingham-well-connected-but-under-fire-uk-vaccines-chief

[MJI]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Also choosing a competent person over a friend at horse racing club

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

This post supports Outski's but has received 2 downvotes. It's almost as if those people downvoted something they didn't understand!

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

It is possible that MJI has a couple of 'Register Stalkers', i.e., someone who downvotes any MJI post automatically unless it is purely factual. A few years ago, one poster commented that he'd recently discovered that overnight his last 100 posts had each received a downvote, and I am somewhat at a loss to understand why some of my posts get unexplained downvotes when they were purely factual too. I do admit that in the past I have 'made fun' of some 'bastions' of a country's culture (military, constitution etc.) but generally with a 'joke alert' icon or (to me) obvious) sarcasm, but I guess some people just take some things too seriously.

[MJI]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Easy it was Dildo and App Mancock

[MJI]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

I was puzzled.

Kate Bingham is pretty competent, knows her stuff and proves there are capable people out there with connections (Jesse Norman).

Yet we have incompetents, but with better connections.

There must have been other more suitable spouses available.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

There must have been other more suitable spouses available.

Marrying a Tory scumbag, even for the money, I'd think is generally not a marker of great qualities in a person. I'd think there would be a lot more talent to be found amongst the strippers and side-squeezes!

[Jim Whitaker]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

These were all management jobs, nothing to do with any knowledge of biochemistry.

[Stork]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

I know MBAs claim otherwise, but I expect understanding the subject matter helps managing it.

[JimC]

Re: understanding the subject matter helps managing it.

Possibly, but there's also the 'a little learning is.. " problem. Submit the most important attributes an executive needs is that of listening to and understanding the *right* technical people, and not falling into the trap of listening only to the people who say what they would like to hear.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Kate Bingham's experience in pharmaceuticals was certainly important but it was he contract negotiations for which she has received praise, and this is definitely management. She got pretty good deals done quickly, which is more than be said for some of the other appointees. Not that it really matters because nobody is going to take the rap for this and no doubt things will be pretty similar next time.

OTOH, as was said at the time, the negotiations were not that much better than others but being first out of the gate was always going to look good.

[Outski]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Her contract negotiations were good because she had a fundamental understanding of the subject matter, that having been the major part of her career to date.

Vaccines: Run by someone working in the vaccine industry for 20 years. Result: Success.

Test & Trace: Run by a generic C-level chancer, married to a Tory MP (the "anti-corruption Tsar", no less, oh my sides) with a record of failure. Result: Failure.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

--Apologies to all those wonderful McKinsey and Company consultants out there,--

You can't apologise to the non-existent.

I write as a ex-consultant.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

I've met one but even though he was great, I remember my boss at the time saying it still wasn't worth the money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

"Baroness Dido Harding is another PPE graduate"

But would she have been any better at ordering gowns and masks?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

"And her record at TalkTalk was not good.""

Yes, the article quote had me do a double take...

"Queen of Carnage – a moniker she earned after presiding over TalkTalk during its catastrophic 2015 cyber-attack"

...and think to myself, "What? Only the one?"

[imanidiot]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

The problem is, when you are in a rush, do you as a public servant or politician, A: go through the process of making a job ad showing the position available, wait for those good people (most of whom you won't know because they'll have jobs outside the government) to respond and go through a selection committee to make sure you get the right candidate (and pray to god they'll do a decent job) or do you B: Go through your flipbook of business cards and hire someone who you have seen in the past at least marginally capable of delivering something somewhat reminiscent of having a hint of a result?

I can tell you it'll be B every time. Which is why the useless people spend so much time hanging around, lobbying and "lunching" with politicians all the time. It puts them "front of mind" when postings like these come up. It's not right but it's how the game is played.

If they'd gone for option A we'd have outrage over "why is the government wasting time with an extensive selection procedure when we need this position filled right now this instant?". They're damned in the public eye either way.

What surprises me more is how incapable politicians and public servants seem to have become of spotting grifters and useless people (in the case of the baroness here).

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

You missed out notice periods - maybe up to a year.

[Outski]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

hire someone who you have seen in the past at least marginally capable of delivering something somewhat reminiscent of having a hint of a result

And in what way does marginally capable or hint of a result apply to Dido Harding?

Fido Dido would have done a better job

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

I would like to think you are right but reality has intruded. It often is about filling the quota regardless of capability.

[gnasher729]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Friend of a friend of the future ex-wife of the prime minister would be even better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

As much as I agree with your observation, I have ample evidence of people being employed because of diversity and not for competence reasons. Including disciplinary cases that would have been the sackings of those of white, Male, British background but not when arbitrary headcount targets for diversity in senior management positions would be threatened.

This probably sounds like an awfully self entitled post. The old line of "I'm not racist, but..."

If there is to be equality, then it needs to be at all levels. Any arbitrary corporate target to have X% of people from certain ethnic backgrounds should be dropped because by their very definition, that KPI is itself discriminatory.

I am an advocate of reviewing CV's blind to anything identifying cultural background; and thereby avoiding unconscious and conscious bias. Only once the CV's have been sifted and relevant candidates contacted should further detail be made to the recruiting manager. I am most interested in the competence of an individual, not where they come from.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Your argument omits the problem that recruiting or even thinning the field on past performance discriminates against the already discriminated against in terms of educational and social opportunities.

The candidate who was a school prefect, went on the school summer trip to help build a hospital in a deprived country, is a blue belt at karate and plays rugby did those things because (s)he had those opportunities and the parental support to take them. The candidate without any of those, but maybe grew up in care, and maybe has an ASBO* for running away from a foster placement or children's home didn't.**

Recruitment for jobs is fraught with difficulties, but I did read somewhere ages ago that face to face interviewing was actually less effective than random selection (literally put the names of everyone qualified to do the job into a hat and blindly pull out however many you want). Of course it would be a very brave employer or Oxbridge college which actually did try genuinely random selection without interview, but on the other hand it would save an awful lot of time and effort.

* UK only ASBO = Anti-Social Behaviour Order

** The poet Lemn Sissay grew up in care and is now a campaigner for children brought up in care. He organises a Christmas Dinner for 18 year olds who were in care but are now deemed adults and therefore excluded from the care and foster system. He made a documentary getting young people in care to write poetry. In it he gives each child a notebook and asks them to write sentences starting with "I remember". One girl wrote:

I remember being taken away for my Mum and being told it wasn't forever.

I remember being told my Mum had died.

I remember being told my Dad had died.

Not surprisingly she had 'issues' and was not the easiest person to get along with.

[John 110]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

You've got to view it as equivalent to Al Capone getting done for taxes. You've got to get them where you can.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

ASIDE

I've often wondered why, in those TV dramas where the honest cop discovered that his or her colleagues are almost all not the take or downright crooks, they don't just send the information to the relevant tax authorities and suggest they check whether they are paying the correct taxes on their illicit earnings. that way the honest cop wold not have to run the gauntlet of trusting a senior officer who is likely to be the biggest crook of all.

I mean if you have a shoebox full of notes received in bribes from organised criminals via your Inspector or Sergeant, just wrap it up and enclose a note saying "I don't know how much tax Im supposed to pay on all of this illegal money, you'll find so-and-so's fingerprints on the notes and might like to check he / she is paying their correct tax" and take it to HMRC / Internal Revenue as appropriate.

[Pascal Monett]

Yeah but, where would the drama be ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

You're right. It is pathetic. Upholding a complaint about equality considerations is an unwelcome distraction. Somebody should be facing prosecution for hiring someone as utterly useless and incompetent as Baroness Dildo Harding. I bet that never happens.

[fajensen]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Yes, Indeed. It was a control fraud, IMO.

The point is to hire someone incompetent and useless for key postions so they are mostly incapable of discovering the fraud, incompetent when it comes to prevent it, and easy to get entangled in the scam for just a nominal cut of the loot.

Dido Harding has the kind of resume that fits the role of flailing leadership :). Someone placed in the organisation in senior advisory position would have been the ones running the day-to-day scamming.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

"So during a pandemic and a crumbling health care system the government appointed someone in haste and are now getting into trouble for not doing a proper equality report."

Appointing someone in haste in an emergency is reasonable (even if it has to be on the basis of "someone we know") with one proviso: the someone appointed in haste should be competent to do the job.

Bingham most certainly was.

Harding most certainly wasn't.

If "equality report" means evidence of an effective process, however rapid, to establish competence before making the appointment then that's fair enough. It's essentially saying the job wasn't done right. The really alarming thing is that whoever made the decision to appoint Harding probably didn't even realise how bad a decision it was - they just looked at the job she'd done previously and not how well she did it.

[imanidiot]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Having heard people like that baroness talk about how they performed in a job they'd utterly cocked up and should in the end be solely to blame for, they'd have you convinced they were out in the frontlines digging foxholes with the troops in an utterly unwinnable battle against overwhelming forced, sacrificing themselves heroically only for it not to matter in the end because they were betrayed by all the people around them dying. They did everything right but everything just lined up against them and there was nothing they could do. They were given bad advice, the project managers (they themselves appointed) turned out to all be incompetent. Their underlings could not read a calendar and missed all deadlines for no reason and in fact they couldn't read at all because they didn't follow the utterly incomprehensible project documentation. Etc, etc.

Reminds me of that Blackadder Goes Forth scene:

General Melchett : Are you looking forward to the big push?

Private Baldrick : No sir, I'm absolutely terrified.

General Melchett : The healthy humor of the honest tommy. Don't worry my boy, if you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you.

Captain Blackadder : About thirty-five miles behind you.

If, as a politician all you've ever heard are the excuses and tall tales from the weaponized incompetents themselves you might believe they're a much better person and manager than they actually are. Which is why it's my firm belief that if you want to know how a person actually performs you should be talking to the people roughly 2 management layers below them. Because the layer directly below them will be appointed suckups with noses so brown and smelly they wouldn't know a garbage dump from a rose farm, layers further down will likely not have enough direct contact. But 2 layers down is the sweet spot for people who indirectly observe exactly what the "guy upstairs" does all day (or doesn't as the case may be).

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

You don't need to go to a tv programme for an example we have a couple of real life ones going on currently.

As an old fart I remember when the MD (didn't have CEOs in those long ago days) was responsible for WHATEVER went on in his patch. Now we're told "he/she/they/martian wasn't directly responsible".

Have a look at

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-buck-stops-here.html

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Dido Harding was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's 'Woman's Hour' a while back.* The forensic and determined questioning showed what an utter hopeless mess she was at Test and Trace, but still she would not admit to any failure at all or apologise for anything.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wrlq.

"Dido Harding was brought in to set up a trest and trace system to help stop the Covid-19 pandemic. This is her first interview since leaving the job."

*If you are ever invited onto 'Woman's Hour' for an interview do your homework, they are most definitely not a pushover and second only to the late lamented Brian Redhead of last century's 'Today' program IMHO.

[ICL1900-G3]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Well worth a listen, thanks for sharing.

[iron]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

They wouldn't convince me of anything. I went to school with people like that I can spot them as soon as they open their mouths, sometimes before.

Since MPs all went to school with these people too, they should be able to spot them as well but either they are blind to their own kind or just don't give a shit.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

"they just looked at the job she'd done previously and not how well she did it."

At the more ratified levels these people operate at, that seems to be SOP. How often do we see reports of some top exec running a company into the ground, taking their golden parachute and moving on.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Guilty of not doing a equality report

Must be a lot of bureaucrats reading today who think the process and ticking the boxes are the main thing.

[trevorde]

Failing upward

Where to next for Harding and Coupe? It's going to be hard to top being in charge of a disastrous £37B project but I think 'UK Joint Peace Envoys to Russia' might be just the ticket.

[Korev]

Re: Failing upward

I hear Siberia is nice at this time of year...

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Failing upward

Siberia is getting quite warm (for Siberia). The current morning book reading on BBC Radio 4 is "The Treeline" by Ben Rawlence, about how global warming means that trees are able to encroach northwards by 50 to 100 meres per year, thawing the permafrost, covering tundra and starving out reindeer.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Failing upward

Just listened to today's episode of that program. IT seems that in Siberia, the warming is resulting in bird migration north, but not the trees (which all seem to be 5 metres tall, however old they are). It is also resulting in more frequent and hotter forest fires, making it more difficult for the vegetation to recover.

Sorry for any confusion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Failing upward

but I think 'UK Joint Peace Envoys to Russia' might be just the ticket.

God no, she'd still be on our side then! We need to get her recruited by Gazprom and put in charge of the Nord Stream project. With the amount of carnage she's capable of, the Ukranians would be in Moscow with their feet on the table in the Kremlin within a month...

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Failing upward

Aren't there a few tribes of cannibals left anywhere?

[The Axe]

Full story is that Runnymede failed in two of their claims, only winning the equality issue. Also, The Good Law project run by fox killer Joleyn Maughan failed in all their claims. However Joleyn is claiming that the minor win is a total win for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the claims were out of time. Others were on the issue of standing.

That the Health Secretary was ruled to have acted unlawfully is not a minor point

[Anonymous Coward]

Acting unlawfully is par for the course in Johnson's clown parade. None of the culprits have had their collars felt, let alone face prosecution.

Johnson illegally prorogued parliament and lied to the head of state.

Hancock illegally procured PPE, most of which was defective.

Priti Vacant violated the ministerial code. She's still in office because Boris chose to do nothing.

Owen Paterson violated the MP's code and Boris violated parliamentary procedure to try to save his skin.

David Cameron took backhanders^Wconsultancy fees from a failed bank to lobby for government handouts.

And that's before we get on to Partygate or Barnard Castle eye tests. Or the Post Office Horizon outrage. Or Cressida Dick's reign of error at the Metropolitan Police. She should have been jailed years ago for running the botched police operation that murdered an innocent man.

Nobody's been prosecuted for any of the country's major scandals and misconduct for decades. The English establishment's old boy network has always looked after their own.

[A Nother Handle]

You missed fire safety from your list of government failings.

[Kane]

"You missed fire safety from your list of government failings."

Too soon..

[Binraider]

I wouldn't trust Dido Harding being put in charge of a paperclip, let alone make informed decisions.

People whinge about Diane Abbott's maths but Dido has pulled howlers of same magnitude, and arguably more so because they were on production systems...

[Anonymous Coward]

@Binraider

Yeah, at least Ms Abbott has the excuse that she was suffering brain-fade because of her diabetes at the time of her maths failure. Ms Harding otoh seems to gather a reputation for spending her life screwing whatever she is in charge of.

[anthonyhegedus]

I wouldn't hire that Dodo woman to organise a fruit bowl, or trust her to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions emblazoned on the heel.

She was a dishonest, shifty and above all useless person when she 'ran' TalkTalk. And nothing's changed. She's part of that government club of cronies and the whole lot of them should be locked up. The political machinations of her husband and her are shameful.

[Tom 7]

Quantum idiots.

"She's part of that government club of cronies and the whole lot of them should be locked up". Locking them up is no good - they are too stupid to obey the laws of physics and would just quantum tunnel through the bars in the same way they get through the high security you would expect there to be around parliament.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Quantum idiots.

When a certain Jeffrey Archer, sorry LORD Archer of Weston-super-Mare, was sent to prison for perjury (telling fibs in court)* he ended up dining with the governor, because, well, he was obviously such a 'good egg', don't you know. Couldn't possibly have a decent chap like him eating prison food, after all.

So yeah, they'd probably have 'chums' who would ensure that they never did anything like having to work or do menial things in prison, after all, the English upper class are all totally trustworthy, decent chaps and chapesses. Ruling class, and all that, nobless oblige.

Cynical, moi?

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Archer

[Peter Ford]

Re: Quantum idiots.

At least while they're in prison they wouldn't be cocking up everything else for the rest of us. I'd say the cost of dinner with the prison governor would be saved a million times over by keeping them out of government decisions.

[sabroni]

Re: I'd say the cost of dinner with the prison governor would be saved a million times over

Is that really all you took from that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Quantum idiots.

They seem to be trying something similar with Boris, namely handing him a hard hat and fluorescent jacket and packing him off to somewhere in the back-of-beyond for the day... only problem seems to be that he keeps finding his way back home

[Lotaresco]

Hold my beer...

Dido Harding, carries incompetence to new levels. Her performance at TalkTalk was bad enough, when as CEO she appointed herself as CISO. Then when the inevitable "sophisticated hack"[1] occurred she ran to the press and declared that no one had ever told her that she had to protect personal data. That time £47 million but that's insignificant compared to how much she blew on the failed Track and Trace programme.

[1] As ever not a "sophisticated hack", just a SQL injection attack.

[Pascal Monett]

Well you've got to admit that, as far as a career in failure is concerned, she's made progress.

[Anonymous Coward]

Previously, she had been on the boards of both Woolworths and Thomas Cook.

[Androgynous Cupboard]

Woolworths for one year, Thomas Cook for three according to Wikipedia. She’s practically a contractor.

[David Lewis 2]

Perspective

OK, the way she was appointed broke the rules and was therefore unlawful.

The fact she was appointed is firmly in crimes against humanity territory.

[ShadowSystems]

I need caffeine...

My caffeine-deprived brain heard the headline & parsed it as Dido herself had been declared illegal.

Damn my need to jumpstart my brain into coherency. =-)p

[Richard 12]

Re: I need caffeine...

One can dream...

[Tony W]

What law?

If a law has no penalty for breaking it, is it actually a law?

[TRT]

Re: What law?

A philosophy question... Article 7 of the declaration of human rights states that there should be no punishment without law, but is there no law without punishment?

I think that's fairly simple to answer... restorative justice does not seek to impose a punishment, merely the restoration of losses. Is that considered a punishment or penalty, though? The removal of gain.

I think the matter is open to debate really. What are other people's opinions or thoughts on this?

[Homeboy]

It's a shame that you didn't lead with the main conclusion rather than picking the single, least important point, where there was a process failure rather than a legal one. Here's the main summary of the report:

“The collective effect of the conclusions set out during this judgment is that the claim brought by Good Law Project fails in its entirety. The claim by the Runnymede Trust fails on Grounds 1 and 3; it succeeds on Ground 2 only to the extent that the decisions on the process to be used when appointing to the positions of Interim Chair of NIHP in August 2020, and Director of Testing at NHSTT in September 2020 were made without compliance with the public sector equality duty.”

You seem to have tried to avoid the phrase "fails in its entirety" and spun the single minor failure into something far greater than it really is.

Why is that?

[druck]

A shameful lapse in reporting standards by The Register.

[Roland6]

>You seem to have tried to avoid the phrase "fails in its entirety" and spun the single minor failure into something far greater than it really is.

Why is that?

Brexit "we won"?

Football - a goal is a goal: okay three missed, but one found the net and that's the one that counts.

[Potemkine!]

For top jobs

Some people have competences, some people have friends. Generally the latter get the job.

[Jedit]

"The infamous Queen of Carnage"

"a moniker she earned after presiding over TalkTalk..."

If I'm not mistaken, did she not earn that moniker here in the article that was linked to? I've not seen it anywhere else.

(I'll let it slide, though - it's a nice classical allusion to her namesake Dido of Carthage, and the Reg writer didn't even smugly point out how clever they were.)

[gnasher729]

Lawless or not

I don't really care whether hiring her was lawful or not. What I care about is that they hired someone totally incompetent who wasted tens of billions of pounds. I wouldn't complain if they had hired someone competent, while doing it illegally.