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The union representing civil servants is set to withdraw from the Cabinet Office’s internal review into racism over concerns that it isn’t taking the process seriously.PCS said there would have to be “major changes” to the “flawed” Respect and Inclusion review, which was launched in November following mounting complaints from staff about racism.It comes after The Independent revealed concerns about systemic problems within the department from a top civil servant.Kay Badu, a Black civil servant who worked within Government Digital Service, was handed a six-figure payout by the government over allegations he faced racial discrimination in Whitehall, we reported, though the Cabinet Office said it did not admit liability and does not accept a number of the claims which have been made.Politicians and campaigners including the Labour Party, Green Party, Stand Up To Racism and Black Lives Matter have called for ministers to carry out an investigation into the department’s approach to race issues.A spokesperson for PCS said: “The revelations from Kay Badu show just how serious racial discrimination is within the Cabinet Office.“PCS supported Mr Badu while he was employed at the Cabinet Office and the settlement, he reached in no way undoes the damage his treatment caused. “We have always been sceptical of the flawed Respect and Inclusion review into racism in the Cabinet Office and it is regrettable that PCS will have to withdraw from the process, unless the Cabinet Office commits to being open and transparent, including providing the union with the full report.” The union said the review’s process lacks transparency and openness, alleging that it has been shut out of the group that is managing the review process and arguing that the timeline on the review is “ridiculously short” and should have been reported by now.Moreover, the Cabinet Office is refusing to share the full report with the union, PCS said, preventing it from confirming that the scope is robust enough. “As a consequence, we are unable to say to members that we can trust the employer to seriously tackle racism and other forms of discrimination,” the spokesperson explained.PCS also referred racism concerns of Cabinet Office staff members to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.The EHRC is awaiting the outcomes of employment tribunals, The Independent understands.The union wrote to Sarah Harrison, the chief operating officer, on Wednesday advising that it will be withdrawing from cooperation in the review in five working days unless the department agrees to the following:The final report of the respect and inclusion review to be published in full.The number of employees given a personal meeting with IPSOS MORI to be increased to an agreed level to properly capture the lived experience of racism and other discrimination of staff. More

An MP accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy 14 years ago will stand trial next month. Imran Ahmad Khan, 48, allegedly groped the 15-year-old in January 2008 at a house in Staffordshire.Mr Khan, who was elected as Conservative MP for Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 2019, appeared at the Old Bailey via video link.Ms Justice McGowan had previously fixed his 10-day trial for 21 March at Southwark Crown Court but has now delayed its start by a week.The judge said: “The fixture of the 21st is broken and we have now set the 28th.”Prosecutor Tom Little QC, said: “The prosecution are trial-ready.”The MP, who denied the single charge of sexual assault when he appeared at the Old Bailey in September, had the Tory whip suspended pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.In June last year he posted a statement on Twitter that read: “It is true that an accusation has been made against me.“May I make it clear from the outset that the allegation, which is from over 13 years ago, is denied in the strongest terms.“This matter is deeply distressing to me and I of course, take it extremely seriously.“To be accused of doing something I did not do is shocking, destabilising, and traumatic.“I am innocent.”Mr Khan, who was born in Wakefield, remains on unconditional bail. More

A Black civil servant was handed a six-figure settlement by the government over allegations of racial discrimination in Whitehall, with the deputy cabinet secretary warning that there was a “systemic issue” in the Cabinet Office, The Independent can reveal.Kay Badu, 36, said he had been subjected to bullying at the hands of white managers over the course of three years in the Cabinet Office, which left him with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. At one stage, he contemplated suicide.Mr Badu, who joined the Government Digital Service in 2018 as an executive assistant, said he was held back from promotion, that a manager had used the n-word, and that he had been asked in front of colleagues: “Why do some Black people play the race card when they get into trouble?” After raising complaints, Mr Badu later found himself the subject of an investigation.Prompted by Mr Badu’s case, Dame Helen Macnamara wrote to Alex Chisholm, the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, raising concerns about the handling of race issues in the department, which describes itself as “the centre of the UK government”.In the March 2021 letter, included in Mr Badu’s employment tribunal claim submission, Dame Helen wrote: “There is a striking absence of compassion in the way Kay was dealt with from the beginning, including the way that the organisation responded to the event where Kay told people that he had been contemplating suicide.“The grievances have allowed what has happened to be interpreted as a disagreement between individuals rather than a systemic issue.“Having heard a number of testimonies over the last year in particular, I think there is a proper question to ask about how [the Cabinet Office] deals with race at a systemic level. That is not about individuals (although individual behaviour could also be problematic); it is about whether the Cabinet Office is demonstrating it is listening to people raising these concerns and taking action to change.” More

David Cameron’s controversial legacy project has had its budget slashed by two-thirds in a review of government youth funding.The National Citizen Service (NCS), set up by the then prime minister in 2011, has had its share of cash cut from 90 per cent of the overall government budget for youth funding to just 30 per cent.It follows an investigation in The Independent that found the scheme had consistently failed to meet government targets or deliver value for money, that executives were being handed six-figure salaries despite dwindling youth participation and that a former board member said the programme was little more than “a holiday camp for mostly middle-class kids.”NCS, which has received £1.3bn of taxpayers’ money since 2011, was set up to run summer and autumn residential programmes for 16- and 17-year-olds to help them become better citizens, but no residentials were run in 2021 and only one smaller residential in autumn 2020 due to Covid-19.Now the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has dramatically reduced money for the scheme. It has announced a total youth services package of £560m over the next three years, of which £171m – 30 per cent of the total – is earmarked for the NCS, down from more than 90 per cent in previous years.This gives NCS only £57m a year, less than one-third of their typical pre-Covid funding package of around £180m a year, and a sharp reduction, too, on funding for the last two Covid-affected years of £75m and £85m respectively. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell MP said the government had been “playing favourites” for years with Cameron’s pet project “without ensuring results and value for money”.She added: “Ministers cannot deflect from their legacy of failure, which has slashed grassroots youth support to the bone in communities across the country, whilst disproportionately funding the National Citizen Service. There is a desert of support in many areas of the north and midlands because this government has played favourites without ensuring results and value for money.”DCMS said its new spending plans were the outcome of consultations with 6,000 young people and 170 youth organisations, in which the biggest clear ask to emerge from young people was for “regular weekly clubs and activities” – in stark contrast to the one-off residentials offered by NCS, which involved young people for just two or three weeks a year. DCMS will instead use the majority of the youth budget to fund up to 300 new and refurbished youth facilities “in the most deprived parts of England”, providing young people with “a space to engage in positive activities outside of school” and ongoing “access support from youth workers”. DCMS has also effectively slapped down NCS for being too middle-class, demanding the organisation starts to “reform”, be more “cost-effective”, and reach more young people “from disadvantaged backgrounds” in a “year-round offering” as part of the government’s so-called “levelling up” agenda. The chief executive, Mark Gifford, acknowledged that the organisation would need to evolve its strategy to keep up with the expectations of users as well as meeting the “levelling up agenda” expectations of the government. Asked about the £85m last year, Mr Gifford said: “Whilst we did not run any residentials due to government restrictions, we ran programmes which delivered a similar experience, but with day travel to activities in the local community. On the summer programme, despite Covid, we reached around 35,000 young people and in autumn we reached just over 12,000. We also delivered skills booster sessions in a range of schools. We have some programmes still running and are not able to confirm final numbers for this financial year until April 2022.”Mr Gifford sought to remain upbeat, despite the funding review falling short of expectations. He said: “We’ve always been ambitious with our plans but are also aware of the incredible demands on the public purse as the country emerges from Covid. Far from feeling disappointed, we are fired with energy and optimism for what we can do to support the next generation of citizens.”Mr Gifford continues to take a remuneration package of over £160,000, with five other members of the leadership team paid well over £100,000 a year. But with current annual costs of £72m exceeding the future funding package by £15m, the organisation faces tough choices and severe cuts as it seeks to reimagine its purpose, balance its budget and keep a clear vision. More

Dominic Raab has been fiercely criticised by women’s campaigners for falsely accusing Keir Starmer of overseeing falling conviction rates for sexual offences and rape while Director of Public Prosecutions.Raab, the deputy Prime Minister, incorrectly stated convictions rates for sexual offences and rape declined while the Labour leader was DPP and head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008 to 2013.“I think it is quite right to look at Keir Starmer’s record between 2008 and 201,” Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programmeon Tuesday morning. “Conviction rates for sexual offences and rape fell between 2008 and 201.” “It is to do with Keir Starmer’s leadership as DPP.”Data from the CPS shows their conviction rates increased from 57.7 per cent to 60.3 per cent from 2007-8 and 2013-14.Harriet Wistrich, an award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, told The Independent: “The important point to make is Keir Starmer did a huge amount of work to improve prosecution of rape and sexual offences.“He was quite revolutionary as a Director of Public Prosecutions in that respect. He did far more than other DPPs to improve the prosecution approach to rape and sexual offences.“It is hugely outrageous to criticise him. The collapse in rape convictions has been in the last four or five years.”Ms Wistrich said the Conservative government can only “partly” be blamed for the fall but also attributed this trend to “reduced resources” as well as “attacks from high-profile” accused individuals who “complained after they were acquitted.”“All politicians slag each other off in whatever way they can,” the lawyer added. “But this shows a lack of understanding and analysis of what took place.”The lawyer argued it is “particularly unwarranted” to criticise Mr Starmer on the issue. Ms Wistrich noted there was a significant increase in prosecutions from 2012/2013 to 2017/2018 and then a “massive fall” in the volume of cases prosecuted until now.Andrea Simon, director of End Violence Against Women Coalition, added: “Recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show rape and sexual offences recorded by police are at the highest level on record within a 12-month period, alongside plummeting rates of perpetrators charged.“As more women are coming forward to report rape and sexual assault, they’re being confronted by a criminal justice system that too often inappropriately focuses on their ‘credibility’ rather than the actions of the perpetrator, communicates with them poorly, and ultimately is unlikely to bring them justice.“We’ve had the government’s Rape Review and the first set of rape scorecards published, but the majority of survivors of rape are not experiencing many meaningful improvements to the way the criminal justice system operates.”Ms Simon called for political leaders to stop “tinkering around the edges” of this issue and instead focus on tackling the “deeply embedded structural issues” which lead to the justice system often failing female victims of male violence.Meanwhile, Jess Phillips, shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, also hit out at Raab’s comments on Twitter. “You have a serious nerve trying to use falling rape conviction when your government has basically overseen total degradation of rape charging,” the Labour MP said. “Since you have been justice secretary sexual violence conviction has fallen. More rapists left on our streets. Cheers.” More

The prime minister is considering increasing the number of British troops being deployed to bolster Europe’s borders over the Ukraine crisis. Boris Johnson said the new offer to Nato that is now under consideration – which could see double the amount of military personnel sent to the region – would “send a clear message to the Kremlin” that “we will not tolerate their destabilising activity”.It comes as No 10 signalled the extra support from the UK could also involve sending weapons to Estonia. Fast jets, warships and military specialists could all be sent to protect Nato allies, it is understood, with Downing Street saying the presence of extra troops would “reinforce Nato’s defences and underpin the UK’s support for Nordic and Baltic partners”.Mr Johnson, who previously said the invasion of Ukraine by Russia would be a “tragedy”, is due to call Russian president Vladimir Putin in the coming days and reiterate the need for the nation to “engage diplomatically” and “step back”, No 10 has said.He is also scheduled to visit eastern Europe early this week as part of the UK’s efforts to help resolve the unfolding crisis.As well as Mr Johnson, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, have been told to fly to Moscow for talks with their counterparts. They will be asked to improve relationships with the Russian government and encourage de-escalation, No 10 said of the various visits. Mr Wallace is then expected to meet with allies in Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia on the PM’s behalf as he continues to deal with the fallout of the Partygate scandal still cutting through Westminster.Meanwhile, Mr Johnson has asked the chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, to attend the government’s weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday to brief ministers on the situation in Ukraine.The UK already has more than 100 troops providing training in Ukraine as part of Operation Orbital. There are also 900 British military personnel based in Estonia, and a Light Cavalry Squadron of around 150 people in Poland, according to Downing Street. Speaking about the possibility of sending more troops to the troubled region, the prime minister said in a statement: “We will not tolerate their destabilising activity, and we will always stand with our Nato allies in the face of Russian hostility.“If President Putin chooses a path of bloodshed and destruction, it will be a tragedy for Europe. Ukraine must be free to choose its own future.”He added: “I have ordered our armed forces to prepare to deploy across Europe next week, ensuring we are able to support our Nato allies on land, at sea and in the air.”Kyiv has urged the prime minister, and other western allies, to remain “vigilant and firm” in their talks with Russia amid concerns after Mr Putin’s forces placed around 100,000 troops, tanks, artillery and missiles near Ukraine’s border.However, the Russian president continues to deny he has plans to invade the former Soviet republic, which borders both Russia and the EU.Following “hours-long talks” between Russia and France, an aide for French president Emmanuel Macron reportedly told The Guardian Mr Putin had “no offensive plans”.Despite this, leaders including US president Joe Biden remain convinced Russia will move in. His administration told the media in recent days that it knows of Russian plans to boost its forces near Ukraine “on very short notice”.Mr Johnson has since said the UK could, and would, deploy troops to protect Nato allies if necessary. Ukraine is not part of Nato and Russia has asked for assurances from the west that it will never be allowed to join the military alliance, seeing it as a direct threat to its security. However, the US publicly rejected such a demand this week, saying the alliance would continue to stick to its “open-door policy”. Nato’s 30 members include the US, UK, and several former Soviet republics, some of which border Russia. All agree to come to another’s aid in the event of an armed attack.The Foreign Office is expected to announce tougher sanctions on Monday, meaning the UK will be able to target Russia’s strategic and financial interests. Asked what these sanctions could look like earlier this week, Ms Truss told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they “would target individuals”.“They would target financial institutions and they would be coordinated with all of our allies across Europe, the United States and others,” she said. The foreign secretary also revealed the UK had not ruled out support for personal sanctions against Mr Putin should he go back on his word and power ahead with an incursion. Additional reporting by agencies More

Officers have not had enough manpower to investigate alleged past violations of Covid laws, police chiefs have said.The Metropolitan Police has faced demands to explain how officers guarding Downing Street could have been unaware of the “bring your own booze” garden gathering on 20 May 2020, while the rest of the country was under strict lockdown.Yesterday, police and crime commissioners did not comment on the scandal embroiling Boris Johnson, but said forces had not launched any retrospective investigations into any alleged violations of emergency coronavirus laws due to lack of capacity.National policy for police forces in England and Wales was drawn up at the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, to focus on breaches that pose the highest risk to public health.During the first lockdown, Mr Johnson’s then-chief adviser Dominic Cummings sparked fury for having driven from London to Durham with his family while it was forbidden to leave your local area.He had claimed the reason he then driven to Barnard Castle was to “test his eyesight” before he drove back to London. Police clarified the national policy after the widespread uproar led to Mr Cummings making a statement on the matter filmed in the Downing Street garden.Durham Constabulary concluded that Mr Cummings may have committed “a minor breach of the regulations” and said there was “no intention to take retrospective action since this would amount to treating Mr Cummings differently from other members of the public”.Commanders in charge of the policing response to Covid issued a direction to all forces, saying that retrospective investigations could be carried out for egregious breaches, if they were merited, proportionate and in the public interest.At the press conference on Thursday, Joy Allen – Labour PCC for Durham – said that Mr Cummings’ lockdown breach in her area of authority happened before she was elected in May 2021.But she said it was right that decisions on how allegations should have been treated were made on a case-by-case basis rather than “just making one decision for everything”.Alison Hernandez – Conservative PCC for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly – said: “[The guidance] was created in a pandemic, it would have been created at speed. “Locally, decisions – absolutely – were made to not to do retrospective investigations because there was not the capacity and we didn’t know what was coming. “Business as usual was stopped as much as possible in order to manage this crisis. “There was also still domestic violence, rapes and sexual offences happening that needed to be investigated. “The aim of using resources to do retrospective investigations on Covid was just not going to be an option. “I supported that [decision] locally because, this about being in a pandemic, we’re just going to deal with what’s happening in the here and now, the day to day.”Stephen Mold – Conservative PCC for Northamptonshire – said: “There is only a finite amount of policing resources that are better directed to domestic violence as a consequence of people being cooped up in their houses, that was a real risk and focus.”Earlier this month, Green peer Baroness Jones told The Independent that she would be writing to the Met Police and national police watchdog IOPC to ask whether officers witnessed or known about the Downing Street garden event.Mr Johnson has insisted that the gathering that he and his wife Carrie attended was a “work event”.It is one of a number of events allegedly held in Downing Street that are currently being investigated by senior civil servant Sue Gray.Police officers, who were called to these events and gatherings held by the general public, handed out fines when social distancing laws were seen to have been broken.More than 800 fines were handed out during the week that the Downing Street party was held. The default fine had recently rose from £60 to £100, and to a maximum of £3,200 for repeat offences.The penalties totalled nearly £1.2 million in London alone, from the beginning of lockdown up until last month, according to a report by the Standard.Campaign groups, including organisation Fair Trials, have said that penalties and prosecutions should be reviewed because current processes – that come to an end are “unjust” and “unfit for purpose”.Griff Ferris, legal and policy officer at Fair Trials, had told The National: “It is also deeply unjust that so many people are being criminalised and financially penalised while those in power appear to receive immunity for the same behaviour. “No one should be fined, prosecuted, or given a criminal record for Covid-related offences while those in power have impunity.” More

Technically speaking, Kate Josephs didn’t lie.For weeks, the former head of the government’s Covid taskforce was asked by journalists in Sheffield – where she is now the city council’s chief executive – if rumours she had attended illegal Downing Street parties in December 2020 were accurate.For weeks, she flatly denied they were. Reporters were told their questions were vexatious. The editor of the city newspaper, The Star, was repeatedly assured Josephs had never had drinks at Number 10.What she failed to disclose, however, was that she herself had thrown her own leaving party at the Cabinet Office right next door.As the rest of the country struggled without seeing friends and family that Christmas, Josephs – the very person in charge of drawing up those restrictions – enjoyed a wine and champagne bash with colleagues. An email invite was reportedly sent to more than 40 people in departments across Whitehall.Now, after her duplicity was finally uncovered, Sheffield is a city incandescent.While Boris Johnson’s own conduct continues to cause as much fury here as anywhere else, it is the behaviour of the Halifax-born chief exec – who earns £190,000 a year leading the council – that feels both more personal and more egregious.The fact she appears to have deliberately misled (if not quite lied to) the very people she is supposed to serve has added an aggravating factor that many here feel is unforgivable. The fact she has since apologised unreservedly – “I am truly sorry that I did this and for the anger people will feel” – appears to have done little to temper that sense. Pertinently, amid growing calls for her to resign or face disciplinary procedures, there is now a sense that this crisis is beginning to engulf the entire political leadership of this Labour-and-Green-run authority.“The city is furious, it is dismayed,” says Lord Paul Scriven, the Lib Dem peer who led the city council here between 2008 and 2011 “Not just because she broke the rules when the rest of us were following them but because she tried to hide it. People feel she has to take personal responsibility for that.“I was stopped nine times at the station this week. I had to catch a later train because so many people were telling me how angry they were. I’ve had one person write to me to say that, on the day she was sipping champagne, they had to say a last goodbye to their mother-in-law on an iPad. Sheffield deserves better than that.”Her ability to do her job effectively, he reckons, is no longer credible: “all this hurt can now only be settled if she takes a good long look in the mirror, does the honourable thing and…resigns”.That she has not done so already – indeed, she is currently enjoying paid annual leave – appears to only be exacerbating and widening the potential fallout of the scandal.Although the council has announced cross-party committee to investigate the issue, the fact that all senior councillors have stonewalled questions on the subject has only added to local fury. Residents here feel like their concerns are being ignored by the very people who should be representing them.And, with local elections barely three months away, there is some suggestion Labour and the Greens may end up paying at the ballot box – creating the bizarre possibility that both parties could lose South Yorkshire council seats over a scandal that started with a Tory prime minister.“We all have to make a decision,” says Lord Scriven. “Do we stand on the side of the vast majority of Sheffielders who have made huge personal sacrifices in a pandemic or do we stand on the side of a person who admitted she broke the rules and only came clean when she broke the rules?“Councillors now have to make their own decision, and the people of Sheffield will then make up their minds about the integrity of those particularly councillors. But they need to understand this city has integrity running through it and it’s not in a position to forgive and forget those senior people who let down the city and let down the side.”A guide to the public mood, indeed, may be The Star’s inbox. It’s had more letters about Josephs in the last five days than on any other topic this century, according to the editor – including Brexit. The vast majority, it barely needs saying, are not happy.“People feel she was bang to rights and I think they are astonished the council isn’t taking a stronger line,” says James Whitworth the paper’s award-winning cartoonist. “A reasonable person cannot sell this any other way than what she did was morally bankrupt, and people want that redressed. They are seething.”The bigger problem, he suggests, may be that, while Labour might lose a few seats at May’s elections if they don’t act on the issue, the party will almost certainly remain in control of the council as they have done for most of the last half century.“So what happens is people feel impotent and they turn off local politics completely,” he says. “They become apathetic, and that damages democracy here – all because one person couldn’t follow the rules that she herself set.”Yet for now Josephs – and council leader Terry Fox – give the impression of trying to tough out the consequences.That cross-party committee will look at the issue but, while such a committee would be the first statutory step towards any disciplinary, no details have been released on what exactly it will investigate or when it will conclude.Josephs herself, meanwhile, has refused to comment since apologising in a limited statement on Friday.For now, then, Sheffield – where almost 1,400 people have died with Covid – waits, still incandescent. 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