UK Government hiding behind gagging clauses

Last month I wrote about UK Ministers banning charities and companies working with universal credit claimants from criticising or harming the reputation of the work and pensions secretary Esther McVey. Now the Times reports that the use of these gagging clauses by Ministers are even more prevalent than previously suspected.

The paper says that cabinet ministers have banned 40 charities and more than 300 companies from publicly criticising them, their departments or the prime minister, as part of deals costing the taxpayer £25 billion. They add that:

• Chris Grayling banned 39 prisoner rehabilitation charities from causing him “adverse publicity” when he was justice secretary.
• Mr Grayling, now transport secretary, has overseen the gagging of a company asked to review whether roads bosses were being paid too much.
• Consultants advising ministers on Brexit have been made to sign contracts with the clauses.

The paper says that while terms protecting employers’ reputations are commonly used by private companies, charities believe that they should be banned in the public sector.

Mrs May has vowed to crack down on employers who use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) “unethically”. Despite this experts hired by the government to test cladding 12 days after the Grenfell Tower fire were banned from criticising Theresa May or doing anything to embarrass her:

It was revealed last month that charities working with universal credit claimants had been banned from criticising Esther McVey, the work and pensions secretary.

A subsequent analysis of 38,500 documents relating to government deals signed since 2015 found 398 contracts that include “adverse publicity” clauses. These state that the organisations being paid must not do anything that could cause bad publicity for the “authority” commissioning the work, defined either as the department or, sometimes, the secretary of state.

Many of the organisations that have agreed to the terms are private IT contractors but they also include charities and companies working on projects that would be likely to attract public scrutiny.

The Cabinet Office signed the deal with WSP to advise officials on whether cladding used by the government estate complied with building regulations on June 26 last year. The company has expertise in cladding and fire safety and worked on the structural engineering for One World Trade Center in New York and the Shard in London.

The contract, for £100,000 plus VAT, stated the company should make sure that neither it nor anyone working for it should “embarrass” or be “in any way connected to material adverse publicity” relating to the Cabinet Office or other Crown bodies.

Clauses like these are anti-democratic and make it more difficult to hold the government to account. When there are safety issues involved, as with cladding, it could put lives at risk. The use of such clauses by government should be curtailed.