The most senior civil servants in the UK Business Department intervened to protect their staff after officials raised concerns about what they described as former minister Alok Sharma’s volatile and intimidating behavior.
(Bloomberg) — The most senior civil servants in the UK Business Department intervened to protect their staff after officials raised concerns about what they described as former minister Alok Sharma’s volatile and intimidating behavior.
At a time when most employees were under guidance to work from home at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, top department officials arranged for some senior staff to come into the office to prevent Sharma from interacting with junior colleagues working remotely, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. Some positions were also reshuffled after staff shared their concerns with then-Permanent Secretary Sam Beckett and other managers, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their current jobs.
Senior civil servants had complained to their managers about Sharma’s treatment of staff, the people said, including emails they viewed as unprofessional and aggressive and impromptu calls to lower-ranked staff to berate their work without the knowledge of their direct managers.
The concerns about Sharma’s behavior were first reported by Bloomberg on April 16, citing four senior officials who worked under him from 2020 to 2022, when he led the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and United Nations climate talks. Since then, an additional eight people who worked directly with Sharma or in the same departments have come forward to describe a pattern of unprofessional and abrasive conduct under his leadership.
Five of the 12 said they believed his behavior amounted to bullying.
“I have been blindsided and am shocked and horrified by these allegations,” Sharma, 55, said in a statement to Bloomberg in response to the latest claims. “I do not recognize them and they have never been raised with me.”
Two former political aides to Sharma, who asked not to be identified, told Bloomberg that he was calm and professional when they worked for him. Three other officials who spoke with Bloomberg said Sharma could sometimes be warm and friendly, though his temper was unpredictable.
The reports come at time of deepening tensions between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government and the non-political civil service that runs ministries day to day. Sunak’s former No. 2, Dominic Raab, resigned earlier this month after an independent investigation found he had bullied Foreign Office and Justice Ministry staff while leading those departments.
Beckett’s office directed inquiries about her role in responding to Sharma’s behavior to the Cabinet Office, which oversees the ministries. The Cabinet Office reaffirmed an earlier statement to Bloomberg that the government had no record of any complaints against Sharma, adding this time that no reports had been made against him under the formal process for raising complaints against ministers.
The Cabinet Office didn’t respond to a question about whether it was aware of any complaints raised against Sharma outside of that formal process. No one Bloomberg spoke to filed a formal complaint against Sharma, although they said concerns were raised informally on multiple occasions.
Sharma, a Conservative MP for Reading West, is no longer in government. He is among dozens of allies of Boris Johnson’s whom the former prime minister has nominated for seats in the House of Lords, media including the Times newspaper have reported.
Considered Quitting
One civil servant, who ranked several levels below Sharma endured a particularly trying experience under him, the officials said. The minister once in 2020 denounced the person’s work as a “f***ing farce,” according to contemporaneous notes seen by Bloomberg.
The treatment, which included similar incidents over several months, took a significant toll on the mental health of the staff member, who considered quitting several times, the people said. The civil servant was prescribed antidepressants and offered time off from work and other support during that period. The person had previously worked under numerous ministers, but said none treated staff like Sharma.
Several officials told Bloomberg that it was rare for civil servants to make formal complaints against politically appointed ministers, because human resources personnel have limited power to respond and any potential consequences are ultimately decided by the prime minister under the Ministerial Code. Civil servants who worked under Sharma said they were concerned that their careers could suffer if they filed an official complaint.
They said they didn’t know whether staff’s concerns were relayed to then-Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, or his successor Simon Case, who would normally be appraised of official complaints.
Johnson’s decision not to punish his then-Home Secretary Priti Patel in 2020, after she was found to have broken ministerial rules, discouraged some from coming forward, officials have told Bloomberg. One in six civil servants has reported experiencing or witnessing bullying or harassment in government departments in the past year, according to the FDA union of civil servants.
Counseling Session
The Guardian separately reported Wednesday that Health Department officials had raised concerns about bullying and bad behavior by Health Secretary Steve Barclay, allegations he denies.
Some civil servants who worked with Sharma said he frequently undermined officials, was prone to swearing and shouting and was quick to lose his temper, taking frustration out on staff about political matters and making civil servants afraid to submit work to him.
On one occasion later in 2020, several different junior officials who worked with Sharma raised concerns about his behavior with another senior civil servant in the department, two people said. That meeting became a counseling-style session where officials talked in Sharma’s absence about how the treatment was impacting morale, according to the people.
Most people Bloomberg spoke with acknowledged that the department and Sharma himself were under particularly intense pressure during the pandemic. While several of the officials said they were used to working long hours and having robust conversations with challenging and demanding ministers, they described Sharma as excessive.
–With assistance from Andrew Davis.
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