Rights body ‘absolute mess’

New concerns about the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have been raised after claims that the new body was in an “absolute mess”. 

Veronica Hannan, a disabled woman from Dundee, told Disability Now that the Scottish branch of the EHRC had told her it could not advise her on human rights issues until later in 2008.

Such advice cannot be given, the EHRC confirms, until approval is given by the new Scottish Commission for Human Rights, perhaps in March or April.

Emails seen by Disability Now reveal that a policy officer at a major Scottish charity said: “This is partially because the whole transfer of functions [from former commissions to the EHRC] is an absolute mess, with folk still not knowing what their posts will be months after the other bodies ceased functioning.”

There are also questions over whether the EHRC, chaired by Trevor Phillips (pictured), will take up individual case work and about proper resourcing for the disability committee.

Sir Bert Massie, former chairman of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and an EHRC commissioner, said: “It takes time for an organisation to settle in but people will not wait forever. As commissioners, we have to deliver.” He added that disabled people were used to having an effective commission “and will not accept a replacement which is ineffective on disability issues. The EHRC needs to make sure that the disability agenda goes forward with greater urgency.”

University College London academic Colm O’Cinneide, who researched single equality bodies for the DRC, blamed transition problems on bad planning.

It was too early to “rush to judgement”, he said, “but there may have been a smoother transition if the established equality commissions had run in tandem with the EHRC while it found its feet.

“Part of the problem is that senior staff were appointed quite recently: it should have been done a long time ago.”

But a spokeswoman for the EHRC said people had “ridiculous expectations” of how soon it should take off.

“It would be disingenuous to expect we’d be firing on all cylinders within three months of opening our doors, with all our policies in place,” she said.

“There is an awful lot of complexity and you can’t do that in 24 hours. If we were doing stuff too quickly, people would be upset we got it wrong.”