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For those who’ve been following the sorry tale: an update on the leadership of the Office of Labour Market Enforcement - the arms length Govt body that assesses labour market risks &coordinates &evaluates the efforts of the compliance agencies run by HMRC, BEIS and Home Office..
My tenure as Director ended yesterday. Knowing the Office can’t function without a Director, aware of pressing issues of labour market abuse & that the process of selecting a successor was stalled I offered to stay on week to week (unpaid if necessary) ‘til someone else started..
My offer was refused apparently as part of a Whitehall policy of leaving appointments unfilled rather than allowing ad hoc continuations. So the Office now has no Director and is as a result not allowed to say anything publicly, engage stakeholders or produce reports...
I had applied for the permanent Director role (my role has been officially interim for 18 months) because - although I am clearly not to ministers’ liking I thought applying might give me some insight into what is happening. So it has proved...
Today I received an email from BEIS telling me the appointment process has been restarted and that applications will be received up to Feb 28th. This means that even if interviews and decisions are made in one month (very unlikely) and even if the chosen candidate can.....
Start a month later (also unlikely) the Office will be without a Director for a minimum of 3 months (i suspect much longer).All of this was entirely predictable and why I made my offer. The whole thing is incompetent, irresponsible and suggests a disregard for vulnerable workers
