Quality | 2009.06.14
New row over equality chief's dual role
Trevor Phillips\'s firm rejects watchdog\'s demand to remove public-private \'conflict\' from its website
Trevor Phillips, chair of the UK\'s equality watchdog, is at the centre of a damaging stand-off between its lawyers and his business partner after concerns were raised that his private business activities expose him to a conflict of interest.
Phillips is a co-founder and 70% shareholder in the Equate Organisation, a specialist consultancy that gives paid advice on race issues. He stepped down as director last year after critics complained that his private business activities could compromise his public sector role.
But Equate \'s website still prominently displays a picture of Phillips. It claims: "Trevor is one of the leading experts on migration in Europe. He has, for over two decades, been advising private companies ... and remains one of the most widely listened-to advisers to government and public bodies in Europe. He is the Chair of the UK\'s Equality and Human Rights Commission."
Emails released to the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that Thelma Stober, the director of corporate law and governance at the EHRC, wrote to Equate in January asking it to drop all references to the commission from its website, a request the company has declined to carry out.
Stober told Charles Armitage, Phillips\'s business partner, that Equate\'s references to the commission "raises the issue of conflict of interest for Trevor and the commission. I raised this with Trevor prior to Christmas and he advised me to write to you as he was no longer a director of the company. I should be most grateful if urgent steps could be taken to amend the Equate website in accordance with Trevor undertaking [sic] and remove all reference to the commission please." In an email copied to Phillips, Armitage declined, replying: "It would be an admission of some kind of wrongdoing on Trevor\'s behalf, which I presume is not your intention." In response to Stober\'s suggestion that she would be happy to discuss the matter, Armitage replied: "Thank you for your offer, but I\'m not sure how this would benefit the running of one of my companies."
The commission sought to clarify Phillips\'s role in December 2007, after work he did for Channel 4 was made public following the Big Brother race row, when several contestants ganged up on Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress. "Mr Phillips should decide whether he wishes to be a management consultant or whether he wants to chair the Equality and Human Rights Commission," Michael Rubenstein, co-editor of Equal Opportunities Review, wrote last year.
Phillips has appeared acutely aware of the need to ensure that there was no blurring of the lines between his public and private roles. In an email to Armitage last year, he requested that references to a potential project involving the BBC, which was never realised, were taken off a website. Phillips wrote: "The problem is that I have sat in on discussion about the work we\'re doing on the BBC, and if we actually were working with the BBC I should have withdrawn; this makes it look as though I\'m misleading the commission."
In a letter dated 21 December 2007, the commission wrote to Phillips, outlining his renegotiated contract "now that you will be working 3 and half days a week for the commission". The letter, marked "confidential", acknowledges "it is expected that up to six times a year, you will use the commission offices at 3 More London to host meetings exclusively associated with your interests outside commission business".
A commission spokeswoman said Equate had agreed to remove a weblink to the watchdog and it was happy for "matters of fact" to be published on the company\'s website.
The EHRC recently came under fire after the National Audit Office refused to sign off its accounts. A number of senior staff, including its chief executive, Nicola Brewer, have left the organisation.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/14/trevor-phillips-equality
