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CBI president says it failed to ‘filter out culturally toxic people’ from ranks CBI president says it failed to ‘filter out culturally toxic people’ from ranks
(about 1 hour later)
In letter to members, Brian McBride says group did not have measures in place to ‘protect our people from those seeking to cause harm’ In letter to members, Brian McBride says group did not have sufficient measures in place to ‘protect our people from those seeking to cause harm’
Britain’s most prominent business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry, has said it failed to “filter out culturally toxic people” from its ranks including those accused of sexual harassment. The Confederation of British Industry has admitted it failed to “filter out culturally toxic people” from its ranks, leading to “terrible consequences” for women who were sexually harassed.
The letter, sent by the CBI president, Brian McBride, to its members, said the organisation “tried to find resolution in sexual harassment cases when we should have removed those offenders from our business”. It comes after a series of revelations about its culture and the behaviour of its senior staff from the Guardian. CBI president Brian McBride said in a letter to its members that said the organisation “made mistakes” which had “led to terrible consequences”, after a series of revelations in the Guardian about alleged misconduct by staff, including two women who said they were raped.The future of the organisation is now hanging in the balance, McBride said, saying he simply did not know if members would be able to “consider trusting us again”.
The lobby group did not have measures in place to “protect our people from those seeking to cause harm and we didn’t react properly when issues arose as a result”, the letter said. The remarks come after more than 50 of the organisation’s most notable members – including John Lewis and NatWest – publicly quit or suspended their links to the business group on Friday following fresh allegations including a woman who said she was raped by two male colleagues.
More details soon McBride said a “number of people” have been dismissed in the wake of the allegations. He said the CBI, Britain’s most prominent business lobby group, had been “complacent” and “communicated poorly and ineffectively with its members”.The letter to members included a summary of some of the recommendations made by an independent investigation carried out by law firm Fox Williams. The firm was asked to probe cultural concerns at the lobby group after the Guardian revelations.
In a series of articles, the Guardian revealed allegations of rape, attempted sexual assault, harassment and drug taking.
Other key points include:
Staff “rightly expected” to have “a safe environment” and they were failed
The group did not sack people when it should have and instead “tried to find resolution in sexual harassment cases when we should have removed those offenders from our business”
It failed to filter out “culturally toxic people” during the hiring process
Its failings “led victims of harassment or violence to believe that their only option was to take their experiences to a newspaper”
The CBI’s approach also allowed a “very small minority of staff with regressive – and, in some cases, abhorrent - attitudes towards their female colleagues to feel more assured in their behaviour”
The organisation paid “more attention to competence than to be behaviour”
Some managers were promoted too quickly without proper training
Staff “rightly expected” to have “a safe environment” and they were failed
The group did not sack people when it should have and instead “tried to find resolution in sexual harassment cases when we should have removed those offenders from our business”
It failed to filter out “culturally toxic people” during the hiring process
Its failings “led victims of harassment or violence to believe that their only option was to take their experiences to a newspaper”
The CBI’s approach also allowed a “very small minority of staff with regressive – and, in some cases, abhorrent - attitudes towards their female colleagues to feel more assured in their behaviour”
The organisation paid “more attention to competence than to be behaviour”
Some managers were promoted too quickly without proper training
Overall, the lobby group did not have sufficient measures in place to “protect our people from those seeking to cause harm and we didn’t react properly when issues arose as a result”, the letter from McBride said.
Separate allegations related to the conduct of the CBI’s former director general, Tony Danker, which were also first reported by the Guardian, were the subject of a different report from Fox Williams. Following its report on his conduct, Danker was dismissed from his role with immediate effect.
Danker said in an interview with the BBC last week that he felt he had been “the fall guy” for allegations unrelated to his own conduct and that his reputation had been “trashed”.The letter also comes after the chancellor Jeremy Hunt told journalists at the gathering for business and government that he could not “wait for a reincarnation of the CBI or the CBI itself to get back on its feet to engage with business, we want to engage the whole time, every week, every day”.
The chancellor said: “There’s no point engaging with the CBI when their own members have deserted them in droves. So we want to engage with a body that speaks for business, it’s incredibly important for me, when I’m constructing budgets to have someone I can turn to who speaks for British business.”