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Nobody, not one organisation was
actually tackling it and doing a | 0:58:51 | 0:58:54 | |
thing about it. And that is
shocking. You are also opposed to | 0:58:54 | 0:58:59 | |
the good people trying to help the
world but you are not as good as you | 0:58:59 | 0:59:04 | |
should be. I feel, it is truly
heartbreaking that we are in this | 0:59:04 | 0:59:11 | |
situation but I want to assure you
that we were not doing nothing. We | 0:59:11 | 0:59:17 | |
were working on it but we have
reached the point where the world | 0:59:17 | 0:59:22 | |
has woken up to the abuse of women
and girls in a very special way and | 0:59:22 | 0:59:29 | |
we find ourselves not to have done
enough but we did something, we have | 0:59:29 | 0:59:32 | |
been improving every year, but we
are not where we want to be. And we | 0:59:32 | 0:59:38 | |
admit that. Your organisation is not
the victim in this it is the women | 0:59:38 | 0:59:44 | |
and girls being abused by the menu
employed in other agencies. -- by | 0:59:44 | 0:59:50 | |
the men you employed. No wonder the
world is angry and questioning | 0:59:50 | 0:59:55 | |
whether money should be given to
charities, sadly the people who | 0:59:55 | 0:59:59 | |
should benefit from this are the
poor people in the different | 0:59:59 | 1:00:03 | |
countries and we are going to lose
out because of all of your | 1:00:03 | 1:00:06 | |
behaviours in the aid sector. I can
see that indeed some people entered | 1:00:06 | 1:00:14 | |
our system who did not share
guidance, the abused the trust of | 1:00:14 | 1:00:19 | |
Oxfam, the power of Oxfam in their
hands, the abused the trust of the | 1:00:19 | 1:00:26 | |
British public who contribute and
turned on the people who are | 1:00:26 | 1:00:29 | |
supposed to protect. It is true. I
am deeply sorry for that. But this | 1:00:29 | 1:00:34 | |
lifeline that we give to people
caught in conflict and in disasters, | 1:00:34 | 1:00:40 | |
I know personally, I came to this
country as a teenager fleeing a | 1:00:40 | 1:00:46 | |
brutal dictatorship in my country
and benefited from the generosity of | 1:00:46 | 1:00:50 | |
British people. I think that I find
we must keep going but we will clean | 1:00:50 | 1:00:57 | |
up. Absolutely, it must happen.
Thank you, Pauline. Nigel. How many | 1:00:57 | 1:01:07 | |
subscriptions have been cancelled to
Oxfam following the revelations? I | 1:01:07 | 1:01:13 | |
think about 7000 individuals have
cancelled a regular donation to | 1:01:13 | 1:01:18 | |
Oxfam over the last ten days. That
is a massive impact. At any | 1:01:18 | 1:01:25 | |
corporate sponsors severed
connections? Corporate sponsors are | 1:01:25 | 1:01:31 | |
reserving judgment, they want to
look at both what we have done, what | 1:01:31 | 1:01:35 | |
policies and procedures are, how
their particular relationship may | 1:01:35 | 1:01:39 | |
have been compromised and indeed
what we are setting in place for the | 1:01:39 | 1:01:43 | |
future. And of the new cases coming
to light, we know some of them are | 1:01:43 | 1:01:52 | |
historic, taking into regard sex
tourism was through the world, are | 1:01:52 | 1:01:58 | |
you passing the relevant information
onto the relevant police | 1:01:58 | 1:02:00 | |
authorities? We have made an
absolute commitment that if there is | 1:02:00 | 1:02:04 | |
a possibility that a crime has been
committed we will pass that | 1:02:04 | 1:02:08 | |
information on. What I have done
already is right to the government | 1:02:08 | 1:02:14 | |
of the countries, the seven
countries from which the | 1:02:14 | 1:02:17 | |
perpetrators in Haiti came,
explained what we found them | 1:02:17 | 1:02:23 | |
culpable of. I have also given that
fool listen to the Haitian | 1:02:23 | 1:02:26 | |
government. But our commitment is
that we will report anything that | 1:02:26 | 1:02:30 | |
might be a crime and it is not for
Oxfam to decide whether it is a | 1:02:30 | 1:02:34 | |
crime, if it is potentially illegal
our job is to make sure that the | 1:02:34 | 1:02:39 | |
relevant authorities whether they be
several police are informed. Could I | 1:02:39 | 1:02:45 | |
add something here? Oxfam works at
any one time in more than 40 crisis | 1:02:45 | 1:02:51 | |
countries, at any one moment. We
have a long history that started | 1:02:51 | 1:02:56 | |
here in 1942. Underground things are
very complex. You will find in some | 1:02:56 | 1:03:03 | |
countries where there are laws
against prostitution but where the | 1:03:03 | 1:03:09 | |
practice is that it is women who are
pursued for being prostitutes, not | 1:03:09 | 1:03:14 | |
the men who buy sex. In other
countries it is only women who are | 1:03:14 | 1:03:20 | |
under the law prohibited from
prostitution, the law does not touch | 1:03:20 | 1:03:25 | |
men. In providing this information
to authorities we must always be | 1:03:25 | 1:03:31 | |
conscious, are we risking the very
women who have been abused by doing | 1:03:31 | 1:03:35 | |
this? It is not simple. I appreciate
that but we have domestic laws in | 1:03:35 | 1:03:42 | |
the United Kingdom where we can
pursue wrongdoers here, so I think | 1:03:42 | 1:03:47 | |
we mustn't forget that. I realise
this was out of your purview because | 1:03:47 | 1:03:50 | |
you came in 2013 but when the
Secretary of State, he seems to | 1:03:50 | 1:03:55 | |
suggest that Oxfam had with the
permanent secretary then, the | 1:03:55 | 1:04:01 | |
gravity of the situation really did
not come to light. In the | 1:04:01 | 1:04:05 | |
discussions that you have had with
the permanent secretary, how far has | 1:04:05 | 1:04:12 | |
the officials gone down to the
seriousness of the allegations of | 1:04:12 | 1:04:15 | |
the sexual problems that existed in
Haiti and other countries? I think | 1:04:15 | 1:04:20 | |
it is completely fair to say that
Oxfam did not tell the Department | 1:04:20 | 1:04:25 | |
for International Development
enough, Oxfam contacted every donor | 1:04:25 | 1:04:28 | |
that have given money for that
appeal. The SIG was not amongst | 1:04:28 | 1:04:34 | |
those donors. But as in a sense the
parent government of Oxfam Great | 1:04:34 | 1:04:40 | |
Britain Oxfam also contacted the F
ID, it did not say enough. I think | 1:04:40 | 1:04:47 | |
Mr Mitchell's assurance that he did
not realise the gravity is backed up | 1:04:47 | 1:04:52 | |
by estimates. Since you have taken
over at what stage have you started | 1:04:52 | 1:04:55 | |
to give full information about what
is going on? What I did with the | 1:04:55 | 1:05:00 | |
Secretary of State last week was:
her at her request, give her a copy | 1:05:00 | 1:05:04 | |
of the full investigation report and
give her a full picture of what had | 1:05:04 | 1:05:10 | |
happened and what Oxfam did
afterwards. We have reassured the | 1:05:10 | 1:05:16 | |
Charity commission, who are our
primary regulator, will matter where | 1:05:16 | 1:05:19 | |
the money comes from that we will
not use words like sexual | 1:05:19 | 1:05:25 | |
misconduct, which is what we use in
our report to them, we will spell | 1:05:25 | 1:05:29 | |
things out and then they can make a
much more informed decision as to | 1:05:29 | 1:05:34 | |
whether they want to follow that
through. We do see the Charity | 1:05:34 | 1:05:38 | |
commission as a prime source of
formal accountability because the | 1:05:38 | 1:05:41 | |
money may or may not come from the
IFT. And at my apology, the concern | 1:05:41 | 1:05:49 | |
is that the F ID is time to be a
leader in humanitarian development | 1:05:49 | 1:05:56 | |
and in tackling violence against
women and anything that undermines | 1:05:56 | 1:06:00 | |
that effort of the widgets
government at people as comprising | 1:06:00 | 1:06:04 | |
their mission. I appreciate that.
That is why I am not going back to | 1:06:04 | 1:06:09 | |
far beyond your time. We have is
what Andrew said what -- when he was | 1:06:09 | 1:06:13 | |
Secretary of State and the conceded
that was the case. But I'm | 1:06:13 | 1:06:20 | |
interested in now is the discussions
that demo officials had with you. | 1:06:20 | 1:06:26 | |
How often do they raise the case of
sexual must practice in projects | 1:06:26 | 1:06:30 | |
around the world? How rigorous Abbey
in drilling down with you? Ever | 1:06:30 | 1:06:40 | |
since you to go with your position.
How interested in the in the issues | 1:06:40 | 1:06:45 | |
that they have been reading? DFID is
an important funder of Oxfam in | 1:06:45 | 1:06:53 | |
several projects, we do not get
general funds from DFID and about | 1:06:53 | 1:06:56 | |
10% of turnover per year comes from
ten the night. But as a | 1:06:56 | 1:07:02 | |
representative of the British
government we have a better | 1:07:02 | 1:07:05 | |
obligation so I detailed
accountability is to the Charity | 1:07:05 | 1:07:09 | |
commission, what we have committed
to the Secretary of State is that we | 1:07:09 | 1:07:12 | |
will give her details on all of
these new cases that have come up so | 1:07:12 | 1:07:15 | |
they can see. What you're saying is
that discussions between permanent | 1:07:15 | 1:07:20 | |
officials and yourselves on this
issue really have not been all that | 1:07:20 | 1:07:24 | |
detail until now? On individual
cases where they have related to the | 1:07:24 | 1:07:29 | |
British government funding, I
believe we have kept them | 1:07:29 | 1:07:32 | |
well-informed. Where we have funds
from other sources it has been much | 1:07:32 | 1:07:38 | |
more a sense of what do we do
together to pick up on the kinds of | 1:07:38 | 1:07:42 | |
issues that Miss Latham was talking
about? Which was tackling sexual | 1:07:42 | 1:07:46 | |
violence, which the former song --
former Foreign Secretary took the | 1:07:46 | 1:07:51 | |
lead on. But you never got the sense
that permanent secretaries are other | 1:07:51 | 1:07:57 | |
individuals within DFID had raised
this issue as being something that | 1:07:57 | 1:08:00 | |
is endemic in paid work in certain
parts of the world? | 1:08:00 | 1:08:05 | |
I think the British government has
shown real leadership in saying this | 1:08:05 | 1:08:08 | |
is a problem not just about the
behaviour of aid workers but | 1:08:08 | 1:08:12 | |
violence against women and the abuse
of women is something the British | 1:08:12 | 1:08:15 | |
government has given a priority to,
we're going to work with them on | 1:08:15 | 1:08:19 | |
that. We have also made a commitment
to them consistently that there | 1:08:19 | 1:08:22 | |
should not be any surprises from
Oxfam that undermine. So when the | 1:08:22 | 1:08:28 | |
permanent Secretary needs of
officials from Oxfam and yourself in | 1:08:28 | 1:08:34 | |
October, how often have you spoken
with the permanent secretaries about | 1:08:34 | 1:08:38 | |
six practice? I cannot say aye have
spoken to the permanent secretaries | 1:08:38 | 1:08:43 | |
or indeed ministers about sexual
practice in Oxfam until these issues | 1:08:43 | 1:08:48 | |
have arisen. I have spoken to
readers of DFID both logical and | 1:08:48 | 1:08:55 | |
civil servants about working
together to tackle violence against | 1:08:55 | 1:08:58 | |
women and abuse of women. We try to
work on the central business and | 1:08:58 | 1:09:04 | |
indeed are now doing so to respond
to things like the passport in that | 1:09:04 | 1:09:08 | |
we talked about. Maki mentioned many
times that you are answerable mainly | 1:09:08 | 1:09:20 | |
to the Charity commission but when
Oxfam put the matter to the Charity | 1:09:20 | 1:09:30 | |
commission, what reasons behind a
door know but they failed to mention | 1:09:30 | 1:09:33 | |
that crimes have been committed. And
it is true that they may have been | 1:09:33 | 1:09:40 | |
involved. Why was that the failure?
I can't defend that decision, I | 1:09:40 | 1:09:48 | |
don't defence that decision, the
report made at the time in 2011 | 1:09:48 | 1:09:52 | |
talked about sexual misconduct, it's
talked about bullying and | 1:09:52 | 1:09:58 | |
intimidation and breaches of the
Oxfam could conduct and unacceptable | 1:09:58 | 1:10:02 | |
behaviour. I believe that my
colleagues at the time thought that | 1:10:02 | 1:10:05 | |
this was sufficiently transparent. I
am not defending it, I don't justify | 1:10:05 | 1:10:09 | |
it and we are committed that we will
go further. I can see by the Charity | 1:10:09 | 1:10:12 | |
commission says that this was not
enough. At the time the enquiry | 1:10:12 | 1:10:18 | |
report which I believe you have said
that there was, Oxfam was unable to | 1:10:18 | 1:10:25 | |
establish where there was no proof
that women under 18 were involved. | 1:10:25 | 1:10:30 | |
Despite the investigation. I think
we should actually said exactly | 1:10:30 | 1:10:34 | |
that. Rather than simply leaving it
out. I think my colleagues did what | 1:10:34 | 1:10:43 | |
they thought was sufficiently
transparent at the time, we know now | 1:10:43 | 1:10:46 | |
what was not transparent enough and
our commitment is, we will give the | 1:10:46 | 1:10:50 | |
details to the relevant authorities
whether in the countries concerned | 1:10:50 | 1:10:53 | |
or in the UK and we will let them
work out what is right and wrong and | 1:10:53 | 1:10:58 | |
how we should sort it out and we
will quarterly with that. Do you | 1:10:58 | 1:11:03 | |
agree that when the public think it
was a deliberate way of hiding the | 1:11:03 | 1:11:10 | |
truth from the general public, when
they failed to inform on such an | 1:11:10 | 1:11:18 | |
important part of the complaint to
the Charity commission? I can fully | 1:11:18 | 1:11:22 | |
see why the public has a challenge
to any confidence in what Oxfam said | 1:11:22 | 1:11:28 | |
and did overtime. We now have to
work hard to earn back that trust | 1:11:28 | 1:11:33 | |
from the public that we will not do
my words, we will do it by deeds. At | 1:11:33 | 1:11:38 | |
the time my colleagues reflected
undecided on a form of words that | 1:11:38 | 1:11:44 | |
they thought were sufficiently
transparent, which included section | 1:11:44 | 1:11:48 | |
-- sexual misconduct. We know that
was not sufficient. And telling half | 1:11:48 | 1:11:54 | |
the story is not enough. We have to
go further and especially if we want | 1:11:54 | 1:12:00 | |
to set ourselves up to be trusted by
the public. We have actually got to | 1:12:00 | 1:12:02 | |
say we will go the extra mile, we
will be unequivocal in the way we | 1:12:02 | 1:12:06 | |
handle this and that is a commitment
that we have made. We have quite a | 1:12:06 | 1:12:14 | |
few more questions and we have two
further panels will go to James. | 1:12:14 | 1:12:19 | |
Earlier in response to Mr Evans he
conflated preventing sexual violence | 1:12:19 | 1:12:25 | |
as perpetrated in country by the
people in country, should -- | 1:12:25 | 1:12:30 | |
shouldn't we expect a higher
standard of people from a European | 1:12:30 | 1:12:34 | |
environment with the European set of
laws funded by the taxpayer and | 1:12:34 | 1:12:37 | |
funded by small donations? And could
I give you the opportunity to split | 1:12:37 | 1:12:44 | |
those two things out because I do
not think they are equivalent. I'm | 1:12:44 | 1:12:48 | |
sorry if I give that impression. I
was trying to respond to what Oxfam | 1:12:48 | 1:12:53 | |
atop the Department for ten national
development about and I was seeing | 1:12:53 | 1:12:57 | |
we talked about the bigger issue not
only specific behaviour of the | 1:12:57 | 1:13:01 | |
organisation. Oxfam must be held to
the highest standards of personal | 1:13:01 | 1:13:04 | |
behaviour. Those individuals came
from seven different countries | 1:13:04 | 1:13:08 | |
around the world, not including the
UK. But they were being managed by a | 1:13:08 | 1:13:14 | |
UK agency and we take full
responsibility for that. We have got | 1:13:14 | 1:13:19 | |
to work on this agricultural level
in the way that when he described, | 1:13:19 | 1:13:23 | |
so that our values are driven
through everything from how we | 1:13:23 | 1:13:28 | |
collect references to how we get
them at the other end and everything | 1:13:28 | 1:13:31 | |
in between. The training, the
behaviour, the accountability. Their | 1:13:31 | 1:13:36 | |
behaviour was not acceptable, it was
not acceptable that Oxfam tolerated | 1:13:36 | 1:13:39 | |
it or indeed that is less if -- led
certain individual design rather | 1:13:39 | 1:13:44 | |
than go three former process so you
have improved commitment that we do | 1:13:44 | 1:13:50 | |
not accept those standards. | 1:13:50 | 1:13:58 | |
There was a statement that there was
no abusive beneficiaries -- abuse of | 1:13:58 | 1:14:05 | |
beneficiaries. I'm trying to get a
grasp of what a beneficiary is. I | 1:14:05 | 1:14:09 | |
think what you're saying is there
was no transaction of aid or food | 1:14:09 | 1:14:14 | |
and expecting to have sex but is
there a wider definition of | 1:14:14 | 1:14:18 | |
beneficiary? Nobody goes into
prostitution as an alternative to a | 1:14:18 | 1:14:25 | |
well-paid job somewhere else.
Completely agree. Oxfam used | 1:14:25 | 1:14:36 | |
beneficiary to mean those indirect
receipt of Oxfam assistance. The | 1:14:36 | 1:14:39 | |
whole population of much of Haiti
were beneficiaries in the wider | 1:14:39 | 1:14:47 | |
sense of which they were affected by
the earthquake. They were living in | 1:14:47 | 1:14:51 | |
poverty. Whether or not they were
affected by the earthquake. Oxfam | 1:14:51 | 1:14:57 | |
tried to distinguish in a technical
way was not the right thing to do. | 1:14:57 | 1:15:03 | |
The investigators were trying to
say, there was not the selling of | 1:15:03 | 1:15:06 | |
six in return for Oxfam aid to --
selling of sex. There was a much | 1:15:06 | 1:15:13 | |
bigger failure and misdemeanour. you
think there is sex for aid going on? | 1:15:13 | 1:15:21 | |
Not at Oxfam but wider? I just want
to say that this categorisation is | 1:15:21 | 1:15:29 | |
not even something we should pay
much attention to. This is about | 1:15:29 | 1:15:34 | |
abuse of power, this is about abuse
of women and girls because they are | 1:15:34 | 1:15:38 | |
vulnerable and voiceless. Whether
they have given them some money from | 1:15:38 | 1:15:46 | |
Oxfam or from their pocket, it is
still not warrant as we are ashamed | 1:15:46 | 1:15:54 | |
-- it is still abhorrent. We're
going to route it out of our | 1:15:54 | 1:16:00 | |
organisation. It's a cultural issue.
We have to fight it as a cultural | 1:16:00 | 1:16:04 | |
issue. It's also an issue of
procedures. I think it's a legal | 1:16:04 | 1:16:10 | |
issue. A legal issue, yes. Could be
go back to the issue of references? | 1:16:10 | 1:16:20 | |
You said the former director of the
Haiti office went on to work with | 1:16:20 | 1:16:26 | |
other NGOs and what Oxfam provided
was a record of when he worked for | 1:16:26 | 1:16:32 | |
Oxfam rather than a reference in the
traditional sense. There were seven | 1:16:32 | 1:16:39 | |
men involved in those incidents in
Haiti. Did any of them have | 1:16:39 | 1:16:46 | |
references on Oxfam paper? To the
rest of my knowledge, one did. One | 1:16:46 | 1:16:58 | |
gave as his referee one of the other
staff in the Haiti office who was | 1:16:58 | 1:17:07 | |
his senior, who then got sent a form
by another agency to fill in and | 1:17:07 | 1:17:11 | |
filled it in as from Oxfam. It had
no official Oxfam stamp but it was | 1:17:11 | 1:17:18 | |
from Oxfam, so because the reference
went straight to the individual to | 1:17:18 | 1:17:24 | |
be written, the former manager, he
filled it in having left Oxfam's | 1:17:24 | 1:17:30 | |
employment as an individual, but
said I was the manager of that | 1:17:30 | 1:17:34 | |
person. That's the one instance that
I've come across on which a | 1:17:34 | 1:17:41 | |
reference that an innocent third
party, another agency, could | 1:17:41 | 1:17:45 | |
reasonably believed the reference
had come from Oxfam even though it | 1:17:45 | 1:17:47 | |
had not come from the institution
and to prevent any of that happening | 1:17:47 | 1:17:53 | |
again, the improvement that we have
been talking about witches that we | 1:17:53 | 1:17:57 | |
only allow references to come
certain channels, we have now | 1:17:57 | 1:18:03 | |
introduced. We were not aware...
Well, we should have been aware that | 1:18:03 | 1:18:08 | |
that was a risk that could happen
but we couldn't stop the individuals | 1:18:08 | 1:18:12 | |
doing it. We need something that is
more proactive which is essentially | 1:18:12 | 1:18:17 | |
the central register, which is which
we are now trying to explore. No | 1:18:17 | 1:18:24 | |
Oxfam reference will be given until
we have that database. No reference | 1:18:24 | 1:18:28 | |
is going out. Of the manager who
gave the reference, for clarity, was | 1:18:28 | 1:18:35 | |
one of the group that had been
dismissed. Could be just go back to | 1:18:35 | 1:18:44 | |
the 2011 report that you were
briefed on when you took over? One | 1:18:44 | 1:18:52 | |
of the recommendations of that
report was that all regional | 1:18:52 | 1:18:58 | |
management teams were to review
learnings from Haiti and consider | 1:18:58 | 1:19:03 | |
potential risk countries and further
action needed and that was meant to | 1:19:03 | 1:19:06 | |
be carried out in December 2011.
Where you briefed that that was one | 1:19:06 | 1:19:12 | |
of the results that came out that
investigation? I wasn't briefed | 1:19:12 | 1:19:22 | |
specifically on that. I was told all
necessary follow-up actions had been | 1:19:22 | 1:19:27 | |
taken at country and regional level
and that central action such as the | 1:19:27 | 1:19:34 | |
setting up of the safeguarding team
and the whistle-blowing line had | 1:19:34 | 1:19:36 | |
been carried out, so it wasn't that
maybe thing was a specific on that | 1:19:36 | 1:19:42 | |
recommendation, but the sense that
this had been appropriately followed | 1:19:42 | 1:19:45 | |
up was the sense that I was very
clearly getting. So has there ever | 1:19:45 | 1:19:53 | |
been an organisation wide review of
potential risk countries? If so, | 1:19:53 | 1:19:59 | |
what are they? We have been well
aware of the high risk countries and | 1:19:59 | 1:20:02 | |
we have tried to put extra work into
them. They tend to be the countries | 1:20:02 | 1:20:07 | |
with the highest level of conflict
and destabilisation of Government | 1:20:07 | 1:20:11 | |
and civil authority. So at the
moment, places like the Democratic | 1:20:11 | 1:20:17 | |
Republic of the Congo and South
Sudan in that very high risk level. | 1:20:17 | 1:20:24 | |
Any country where you have an
immediate natural disaster is always | 1:20:24 | 1:20:28 | |
a high risk because it is people
who, like in Haiti, are people who | 1:20:28 | 1:20:35 | |
have had their lives traumatised and
so we try to put protection teams in | 1:20:35 | 1:20:39 | |
at an early stage of our response to
make sure we work on the practical | 1:20:39 | 1:20:43 | |
front and safety fund the same time.
-- safety front. Another | 1:20:43 | 1:20:54 | |
recommendation is that headquarter
senior staff should arrange meetings | 1:20:54 | 1:20:58 | |
with female staff only were they
explore issues of culture and ways | 1:20:58 | 1:21:03 | |
of working and any problems. Does
that happen? If I could answer that, | 1:21:03 | 1:21:09 | |
as part of my induction to Oxfam, I
have done to visits, one to | 1:21:09 | 1:21:14 | |
Pakistan. It was made clear that one
of the things I should do was have | 1:21:14 | 1:21:19 | |
this meeting with female only staff.
I did it in both cases. My | 1:21:19 | 1:21:23 | |
predecessor didn't religiously. --
did it religiously. It is about | 1:21:23 | 1:21:29 | |
building trust as much as anything
else and giving people an | 1:21:29 | 1:21:34 | |
opportunity, giving people a voice,
giving women a safe place to report | 1:21:34 | 1:21:37 | |
these are given to -- or give
indications. By all senior female | 1:21:37 | 1:21:51 | |
staff. It is very important is done
by the women. It was happening by | 1:21:51 | 1:21:59 | |
the time I joined in 2013. It's
something my predecessor did and | 1:21:59 | 1:22:03 | |
other senior staff have done so it
was in place by 2013, it wasn't | 1:22:03 | 1:22:08 | |
something I had to get involved in
starting. I want to ask for a | 1:22:08 | 1:22:16 | |
confirmation about the references
you give. It's common practice that | 1:22:16 | 1:22:21 | |
references are shown or unavailable
to the employee who is seeking them | 1:22:21 | 1:22:24 | |
to go on to another job. Is that
Oxfam's practice, that the | 1:22:24 | 1:22:29 | |
unavailable to your employees --
that they are available to your | 1:22:29 | 1:22:35 | |
employees? I'll have to get back to
you on the universality of that but | 1:22:35 | 1:22:39 | |
don't think it is Donald practice.
In other words, if I am asked for a | 1:22:39 | 1:22:43 | |
reference, I feel no obligation to
show it to the individual and of | 1:22:43 | 1:22:47 | |
something is being shown to the
individual, I would expect that to | 1:22:47 | 1:22:50 | |
have been agreed and shared with the
person to whom you're giving the | 1:22:50 | 1:22:53 | |
reference. So it is not standard
practice. So you can be completely | 1:22:53 | 1:22:59 | |
honest in your references but you're
not, because you allow people to | 1:22:59 | 1:23:04 | |
leave and move on to other jobs even
though they are questionably | 1:23:04 | 1:23:10 | |
perpetrators of sexual violence
against women and girls. I think the | 1:23:10 | 1:23:16 | |
adventure describing where in 2011,
were Oxfam gave a certificate of | 1:23:16 | 1:23:22 | |
service. It should have gone beyond
that. I'm not talking just about | 1:23:22 | 1:23:27 | |
that, I'm talking about others. The
note actually says that the | 1:23:27 | 1:23:34 | |
statement of service that was given
in 2011 said we cannot complete the | 1:23:34 | 1:23:42 | |
form you asked us to complete. It
says for legal reasons, we cannot | 1:23:42 | 1:23:48 | |
say more. That's the note that I
just got. It then said he served | 1:23:48 | 1:23:55 | |
from 2010 to 2014 but what I had
insured with you previously was that | 1:23:55 | 1:24:00 | |
statement that this was actually for
legal reasons. Were Oxfam's internal | 1:24:00 | 1:24:11 | |
investigation included in 2011, the
statement to the public was vague. | 1:24:11 | 1:24:17 | |
Was it a cover-up or was it head in
the sand? I can't give you the | 1:24:17 | 1:24:27 | |
thinking of each individual. I can
tell you what is being recorded and | 1:24:27 | 1:24:30 | |
what we now know. Oxfam was trying
to deliver the programme of | 1:24:30 | 1:24:36 | |
desperately needed assistance to 1
million people, it was a huge | 1:24:36 | 1:24:40 | |
programme with 500 staff and I
believe that in making the decisions | 1:24:40 | 1:24:45 | |
at the time, my predecessors would
have looked at the balance of being | 1:24:45 | 1:24:52 | |
proactive and actually saying, we
got this wrong, wanting to reassure | 1:24:52 | 1:24:55 | |
the public that money that should
have been spent on beneficiaries had | 1:24:55 | 1:25:00 | |
not been defrauded and carry on
delivering that programme. I don't | 1:25:00 | 1:25:11 | |
defend that decision but I believe
those would have been the reason | 1:25:11 | 1:25:13 | |
that were primarily behind it at the
time. I also need to say that Oxfam | 1:25:13 | 1:25:20 | |
believed wrongly it was being
proactive in that not every | 1:25:20 | 1:25:25 | |
organisation chooses to go out and
tell the public about something | 1:25:25 | 1:25:28 | |
they've got badly wrong. That's not
an excuse, but I suspect that the | 1:25:28 | 1:25:36 | |
motivation was actually the power of
delivery of what Oxfam was trying to | 1:25:36 | 1:25:39 | |
do for 1 million people in desperate
need. I appreciate your comments but | 1:25:39 | 1:25:45 | |
from our point of view, does it not
the click Oxfam is more interested | 1:25:45 | 1:25:49 | |
in protecting its own brand than
protecting vulnerable women and | 1:25:49 | 1:25:54 | |
girls? It may look like that, I
can't do anything other than I think | 1:25:54 | 1:25:57 | |
it was wrong but I actually think
that the first thought in the minds | 1:25:57 | 1:26:02 | |
of my colleagues at the time would
actually have been protecting the | 1:26:02 | 1:26:07 | |
delivery of assistance to people who
were living in poverty. That money | 1:26:07 | 1:26:12 | |
had already been raised for Haiti.
It was really important that it was | 1:26:12 | 1:26:17 | |
well spent so I repeat, I don't
think they made the right call, but | 1:26:17 | 1:26:23 | |
I believe the call was made in good
faith at the time. We've got a | 1:26:23 | 1:26:31 | |
number of further questions and we
are running overtime. Do you use | 1:26:31 | 1:26:39 | |
your public affairs companies when
you talk about branding? Not | 1:26:39 | 1:26:46 | |
normally. We will use companies that
help us with creation of particular | 1:26:46 | 1:26:52 | |
advertising at giving fund for -- at
a particular time for fundraising | 1:26:52 | 1:27:00 | |
but we have people in to manage our
operations. Do you perceive the way | 1:27:00 | 1:27:06 | |
you have to bid for Government
funding and to donors and members of | 1:27:06 | 1:27:11 | |
the British public as a disincentive
for being open and transparent | 1:27:11 | 1:27:15 | |
because of your reputation? Oxfam
has tried to be open and | 1:27:15 | 1:27:22 | |
transparent, it hasn't tried hard
enough and we haven't always | 1:27:22 | 1:27:26 | |
succeeded but far more than ten
years, well before 2007, Oxfam has | 1:27:26 | 1:27:30 | |
actually published a list of
incidents in our annual report. Not | 1:27:30 | 1:27:38 | |
many organisations do that. We've
shared details data or data with | 1:27:38 | 1:27:44 | |
regulators. That all of our
obligation. We need to go further | 1:27:44 | 1:27:49 | |
and I suspect many times there is a
difficult question about how much do | 1:27:49 | 1:27:53 | |
we say and what will the impact be?
What I can reassure you is that | 1:27:53 | 1:27:58 | |
Caroline as chair has said
explicitly we will never allow | 1:27:58 | 1:28:02 | |
Oxfam's reputation to be put ahead
of our absolute commitment to | 1:28:02 | 1:28:08 | |
deliver our mission. I was going to
ask you, what more do you think the | 1:28:08 | 1:28:15 | |
trustees should have done
specifically in 2011? In the | 1:28:15 | 1:28:20 | |
response to the scandal at the time?
As I said, I start from the presence | 1:28:20 | 1:28:28 | |
that secrecy is an anathema to trust
and transparency is a key tool to | 1:28:28 | 1:28:35 | |
rooting out the sort of behaviour
and changing the values of the | 1:28:35 | 1:28:41 | |
organisation, and I think it has a
value beyond the accountability | 1:28:41 | 1:28:43 | |
value in terms of culture change. In
2011, I think it should have been | 1:28:43 | 1:28:49 | |
made clear that the allegations were
about prostitution and that she had | 1:28:49 | 1:28:53 | |
been clear in the report to the
Charity commission and in the report | 1:28:53 | 1:28:56 | |
to DFID and in the press release. It
should essentially have been more | 1:28:56 | 1:29:04 | |
explicit. One of the things that
came out last week was the use of | 1:29:04 | 1:29:12 | |
prostitution in contracts because of
Civil Liberties. Slightly bizarre in | 1:29:12 | 1:29:17 | |
my view. Is there nothing in the
contract that would effectively | 1:29:17 | 1:29:25 | |
covered that? The two things that
DFID does is talking about tackling | 1:29:25 | 1:29:30 | |
global poverty. So that would have
covered that? | 1:29:30 | 1:29:40 | |
We do have that cattle and it should
have covered it. It is absolutely | 1:29:40 | 1:29:44 | |
clear that the behaviour at the time
was absolutely contrary to Oxfam's | 1:29:44 | 1:29:50 | |
code of conduct. So would you say
that the use of prostitutes in | 1:29:50 | 1:29:53 | |
conflict or disaster zones, because
they are the wider sense the | 1:29:53 | 1:29:58 | |
beneficiaries as we were talking
about earlier would automatically be | 1:29:58 | 1:30:01 | |
against the contract? It is implicit
in the code of conduct. It wasn't at | 1:30:01 | 1:30:08 | |
the time? Not in that wording but it
was in the sense that it was | 1:30:08 | 1:30:13 | |
anything that is exploitative, and
all of these relationships are | 1:30:13 | 1:30:19 | |
exploitative, we fully accept that.
And that is why we should not have | 1:30:19 | 1:30:21 | |
accepted the resignation of the
individuals. In two cases we had no | 1:30:21 | 1:30:26 | |
choice, they literally disappeared.
But we should still have completed | 1:30:26 | 1:30:29 | |
the hearing and found them culpable
and that is the practice that we now | 1:30:29 | 1:30:34 | |
have. Was that another example of
someone misspeaking when they said | 1:30:34 | 1:30:39 | |
that it wasn't in there because of
civil liberties when the report came | 1:30:39 | 1:30:43 | |
out and said that prostitution was
not explicitly forbidden in the | 1:30:43 | 1:30:48 | |
contract was not to offend the
employees civil liberties? I think | 1:30:48 | 1:30:54 | |
we have two things there. The code
of conduct has always said | 1:30:54 | 1:30:58 | |
exploitative relationships are
absolutely credited. The code of | 1:30:58 | 1:31:05 | |
conduct did not see the use of
prostitutes explicitly was. What we | 1:31:05 | 1:31:10 | |
should have used that issue of
bringing Oxfam into disrepute, power | 1:31:10 | 1:31:14 | |
relations, all those other
dimensions, and we could have done | 1:31:14 | 1:31:17 | |
that without worrying about legal
jurisdictions. Can I ask you to | 1:31:17 | 1:31:24 | |
comment on this aspect. The use of
prostitutes in conditions of poverty | 1:31:24 | 1:31:32 | |
and helplessness and conflict is
exploitation. It is abuse. And this | 1:31:32 | 1:31:39 | |
is intolerable in their
organisation. What happened to let | 1:31:39 | 1:31:44 | |
the country director Galway with
some dignity? That is wrong. It is | 1:31:44 | 1:31:52 | |
something that would not happen
today in Oxfam and it hurts me that | 1:31:52 | 1:31:56 | |
the organisation cannot be today
faced with the question about | 1:31:56 | 1:32:05 | |
whether we put our reputation, our
brand before the lives of people. A | 1:32:05 | 1:32:10 | |
reputation depends on the
relationships with the people we | 1:32:10 | 1:32:14 | |
serve and it is not helpful free
abuse the people we serve. And I | 1:32:14 | 1:32:25 | |
want to be sure that Oxfam is the
organisation, plan of action which I | 1:32:25 | 1:32:28 | |
have put out is precisely about
that. It is our top priority right | 1:32:28 | 1:32:34 | |
now. We will open their books to
investigators to tell us what we | 1:32:34 | 1:32:40 | |
need to do. It is about letting the
people who come in through | 1:32:40 | 1:32:46 | |
appropriate references. It is about
increasing money for safeguarding | 1:32:46 | 1:32:50 | |
and making sure that we do this job
properly. Chair and honourable | 1:32:50 | 1:32:59 | |
members of parliament this
organisation reaches 90 million | 1:32:59 | 1:33:01 | |
people every year in 90 countries,
most of them women trapped by war | 1:33:01 | 1:33:06 | |
and disasters. Help us to get this
right in to clean up but to keep | 1:33:06 | 1:33:13 | |
reaching people who need the British
help. James has a follow-up | 1:33:13 | 1:33:18 | |
question. Said there was a list of
all of the cases in the report. Was | 1:33:18 | 1:33:25 | |
that the annual report? The only
thing I saw last night was the three | 1:33:25 | 1:33:28 | |
paragraphs. Was that a different
report? Now, we have since I believe | 1:33:28 | 1:33:34 | |
20 is -- 2007 and a summary in our
annual report which was the cases. | 1:33:34 | 1:33:43 | |
Sorry I thought it was an actual
summary. The details get reported to | 1:33:43 | 1:33:49 | |
the relevant authorities so what we
publish is the summary number of the | 1:33:49 | 1:33:54 | |
cases. But not a summary of the
cases. In your statement last week | 1:33:54 | 1:34:04 | |
used book about extending the review
of the practices of recruitment and | 1:34:04 | 1:34:13 | |
monitoring and managing those people
who are employed to work in | 1:34:13 | 1:34:18 | |
challenging environments. Shouldn't
you have had that as part of your | 1:34:18 | 1:34:29 | |
review before Oxfam was exposed as
being negligent? We should have | 1:34:29 | 1:34:33 | |
done. We believed that we had sound
recruitment systems which are very | 1:34:33 | 1:34:42 | |
occasionally fail. Now recognise
that that is not good enough and | 1:34:42 | 1:34:47 | |
that what we need is something that
goes right through the culture of | 1:34:47 | 1:34:52 | |
the whole organisation, which
includes recruitment systems and it | 1:34:52 | 1:34:56 | |
includes the commitment we have been
making to transparency. We launched | 1:34:56 | 1:35:05 | |
in November of peace offer that was
intended to help with that the whole | 1:35:05 | 1:35:09 | |
employment cycle of staff. That work
is underway and we have made a | 1:35:09 | 1:35:15 | |
commitment to report on it as soon
as it is finished. What he's done in | 1:35:15 | 1:35:19 | |
the last week is something much
bigger that looks at the different | 1:35:19 | 1:35:24 | |
strands of work and holds them
together and says is the sufficient? | 1:35:24 | 1:35:27 | |
And commit to making that public. We
have had too many people whose | 1:35:27 | 1:35:31 | |
behaviour is unacceptable, who have
been allowed to work and we have got | 1:35:31 | 1:35:38 | |
to find better ways of making sure
we don't recruit them in the first | 1:35:38 | 1:35:41 | |
place and indeed that they are
reported to the relevant | 1:35:41 | 1:35:43 | |
authorities. And when is that review
going to report? The first review | 1:35:43 | 1:35:50 | |
comes to our governing body in
March. Miss Thompson would you like | 1:35:50 | 1:35:55 | |
to band on the councils -- would you
like to expand on the council? | 1:35:55 | 1:36:03 | |
Absolutely. When I arrived us chair
in October I immediately, before | 1:36:03 | 1:36:08 | |
this happened, commissioned an
external review of governance | 1:36:08 | 1:36:10 | |
because I think it is a good
practice to have external reviews | 1:36:10 | 1:36:17 | |
every three years but also because
particularly with the event creation | 1:36:17 | 1:36:20 | |
of new arrangements with Oxfam
International I thought governance | 1:36:20 | 1:36:24 | |
needed to be brought up to date.
Just a few weeks later we had the | 1:36:24 | 1:36:29 | |
initial stories in the Times about
safeguarding Sobhi immediately | 1:36:29 | 1:36:34 | |
working with the Charity commission
extended that review of governance. | 1:36:34 | 1:36:37 | |
It is an external review by a former
Charity commission member. We | 1:36:37 | 1:36:43 | |
extended to include our governance
and safeguarding. I have seen the | 1:36:43 | 1:36:46 | |
preliminary report on safeguarding,
it is making some big | 1:36:46 | 1:36:49 | |
recommendations about how we could
improve our governance. It talks | 1:36:49 | 1:36:53 | |
about the strengths as well as
weaknesses. The preliminary view is | 1:36:53 | 1:37:00 | |
coming to the council in March for
action. On that idea of looking at | 1:37:00 | 1:37:12 | |
the recruitment of staff, I know
that there have been a number of | 1:37:12 | 1:37:22 | |
reports including for example the
sexual exploitation report, which | 1:37:22 | 1:37:26 | |
interviews a number of aid workers
about sexual abuse in the aid sector | 1:37:26 | 1:37:32 | |
over a number of years. But also
Unite the union have raised the | 1:37:32 | 1:37:41 | |
practices of short-term contracts
often mean that aid workers who are | 1:37:41 | 1:37:48 | |
the troublemakers or raise issues
are the ones who do not get their | 1:37:48 | 1:37:54 | |
contract reviewed -- renewed when is
the more established many management | 1:37:54 | 1:37:57 | |
will often be on permanent
contracts. Is that something that | 1:37:57 | 1:38:01 | |
you need to urgently look at the use
of short-term contracts may prevent | 1:38:01 | 1:38:08 | |
people people from sneaking out?
That the humanitarian organisation | 1:38:08 | 1:38:14 | |
we are committed to achieving speed
and scale when disaster strikes and | 1:38:14 | 1:38:22 | |
conflict erupts. It is true we have
a challenge of recruiting any people | 1:38:22 | 1:38:32 | |
to work on an emergency and then
they must have a short contract | 1:38:32 | 1:38:34 | |
because then they also, the
emergency ends and they have to go | 1:38:34 | 1:38:39 | |
so short-term contracts have to be
part of emergency work. The issue | 1:38:39 | 1:38:44 | |
there is about helping people who
are already vetted at least. That is | 1:38:44 | 1:38:51 | |
why it is so important that
humanitarian workers are also | 1:38:51 | 1:38:55 | |
certified, the way teachers and
doctors are certified, so that we | 1:38:55 | 1:39:00 | |
recruit from a pool of already
vetted people when there is an | 1:39:00 | 1:39:04 | |
emergency. And this is something we
are championing, this is something | 1:39:04 | 1:39:07 | |
we're putting a lot of... Sexual
exploitation for example lists how | 1:39:07 | 1:39:13 | |
junior aid workers are being
sexually assaulted by senior | 1:39:13 | 1:39:19 | |
management in aid organisation so it
is not just about making sure the | 1:39:19 | 1:39:23 | |
short-term staff are vetted, and is
about making sure the short-term | 1:39:23 | 1:39:30 | |
staff are not the victims of some
management failure. I think you're | 1:39:30 | 1:39:36 | |
hitting an important issue follows,
and actually also in November we | 1:39:36 | 1:39:41 | |
started it a review by an external
consultant of Oxfam Great Britain's | 1:39:41 | 1:39:47 | |
employment practices and how we
handle them and I think you're | 1:39:47 | 1:39:49 | |
absolutely right to point out that
people on short-term contracts and | 1:39:49 | 1:39:53 | |
the vulnerability they feel which
exacerbate the power relationship | 1:39:53 | 1:39:57 | |
which already exists where often
younger women feel under pressure to | 1:39:57 | 1:40:02 | |
do things for older men. Because of
the power relationship. That report | 1:40:02 | 1:40:09 | |
is coming to our March board meeting
for discussion and I will make sure | 1:40:09 | 1:40:16 | |
it covers the issue of short-term
contract because I think that is | 1:40:16 | 1:40:18 | |
really important. You mentioned a
number of times that there are legal | 1:40:18 | 1:40:24 | |
barriers to doing some of this
checking. My understanding is that | 1:40:24 | 1:40:28 | |
you can use the DS checks for anyone
working with vulnerable people. | 1:40:28 | 1:40:33 | |
First of all, do you use devious
checking with the barring service, | 1:40:33 | 1:40:41 | |
what used to be CRB? On all of your
staff that you are sending out to | 1:40:41 | 1:40:47 | |
country? And secondly what have they
legal challenges of making sure | 1:40:47 | 1:40:50 | |
you're using those checks and that
you are reporting back to this body | 1:40:50 | 1:40:56 | |
so that then issues go on file? If I
answer the question taking us back | 1:40:56 | 1:41:03 | |
to Haiti, we have seven staff who
are seriously culpable, none of them | 1:41:03 | 1:41:07 | |
were British. So the issue of
international verification is a real | 1:41:07 | 1:41:15 | |
challenge. For British staff in
positions of working with honourable | 1:41:15 | 1:41:24 | |
people, the BS is a central part of
the way that we work and to use the | 1:41:24 | 1:41:27 | |
example we have extended it steadily
beyond, in the UK are shop managers | 1:41:27 | 1:41:33 | |
to the supervising volunteers, we
are steadily rolling back out. Is | 1:41:33 | 1:41:40 | |
every British person in the field
working that way? Every British | 1:41:40 | 1:41:45 | |
person who is in a position of
directly working with vulnerable | 1:41:45 | 1:41:51 | |
people is someone who I believe
should be checked. The review | 1:41:51 | 1:41:55 | |
writing afterwards and the issuance
of how we define that. But the real | 1:41:55 | 1:42:00 | |
issue for us is we need something
that goes beyond the existence of | 1:42:00 | 1:42:04 | |
that system, as it does with social
workers and teachers. And that is | 1:42:04 | 1:42:09 | |
what we need -- we might need power
to help us but in the meantime we | 1:42:09 | 1:42:14 | |
can get our own house better in
order by trying to build this | 1:42:14 | 1:42:19 | |
humanitarian passport really need a
positive endorsement rather than | 1:42:19 | 1:42:21 | |
just an negative mark to be
recommended. In some ways we -- in | 1:42:21 | 1:42:29 | |
some things we're working with
others and in other areas we may | 1:42:29 | 1:42:32 | |
need greater help. You alluded that
some other agencies will have been | 1:42:32 | 1:42:40 | |
cooperative forthcoming. Why would
they not be quarter of an | 1:42:40 | 1:42:43 | |
forthcoming? Who's to blame in that
lack of cooperation? I did not say | 1:42:43 | 1:42:49 | |
that they were not cooperating, what
I wanted to say was that the process | 1:42:49 | 1:42:54 | |
of moving this was slow and I think
the big issue that was being raised | 1:42:54 | 1:42:58 | |
is due distinction. That in some
countries some of the offences in | 1:42:58 | 1:43:05 | |
our global conduct need to go and
how do you then as an employee | 1:43:05 | 1:43:14 | |
expose them for breaching her code
of conduct? These were the questions | 1:43:14 | 1:43:22 | |
that different countries have
different jurisdictions and it was | 1:43:22 | 1:43:25 | |
part, I would not want to blame
anyone, I would just that all of us | 1:43:25 | 1:43:31 | |
were slow. But now with we have to
fast-track this and we are doing | 1:43:31 | 1:43:38 | |
exactly that. The last thing I
wanted to touch on was about the way | 1:43:38 | 1:43:44 | |
the regulation and reported to the
appropriate authorities of course. A | 1:43:44 | 1:43:52 | |
number of you mentioned about the
Charity commission being your | 1:43:52 | 1:43:55 | |
primary regulator. Do we need to
consider setting up a new regulator | 1:43:55 | 1:43:59 | |
like you have in the educational
institutions, also regularly by | 1:43:59 | 1:44:04 | |
Ofstead? Would it be your view that
maybe we need to expand and have a | 1:44:04 | 1:44:10 | |
view of looking at how effective you
are in the doing no harm part? Do we | 1:44:10 | 1:44:19 | |
need power regulation here in the UK
and how would you see that | 1:44:19 | 1:44:21 | |
happening? That is an issue to which
we should give some thought. I would | 1:44:21 | 1:44:28 | |
say that there would be benefits and
it would give some focus and clearly | 1:44:28 | 1:44:33 | |
it also might help rebuild trust.
Against that there is a risk of | 1:44:33 | 1:44:40 | |
multiple regulators that actually
that causes confusion, things fall | 1:44:40 | 1:44:44 | |
between the cracks everywhere to do
it it would need to be done with | 1:44:44 | 1:44:51 | |
good debate. Education charities
manage. That might be an interesting | 1:44:51 | 1:44:56 | |
model to look at. | 1:44:56 | 1:45:03 | |
I asked you early, around reporting
to the Charity Commission. I have | 1:45:03 | 1:45:09 | |
been sent a copy of an e-mail from
the Charity Commission to Oxfam in | 1:45:09 | 1:45:15 | |
2015 in which they say it has been
suggested there have been incidents | 1:45:15 | 1:45:20 | |
in Oxfam shops. Incidents about
fraud in charity shops but not about | 1:45:20 | 1:45:24 | |
safeguarding issues. Do you recall
that e-mail from the Charity | 1:45:24 | 1:45:29 | |
Commission and then what was done in
response to it? I don't recall that | 1:45:29 | 1:45:35 | |
e-mail. I haven't seen that e-mail
before. What I have seen is a | 1:45:35 | 1:45:41 | |
reinforcement of Oxfam's work in
2015 in charity shops to make sure | 1:45:41 | 1:45:46 | |
not only whether systematic
reporting but there was a very | 1:45:46 | 1:45:51 | |
systematic approach to training,
vetting, upskilling senior staff and | 1:45:51 | 1:46:03 | |
systematic reporting was part of
that. As I mentioned at the | 1:46:03 | 1:46:07 | |
beginning, we decided in her private
session early that we will be | 1:46:07 | 1:46:11 | |
conducting a full inquiry into these
matters and to reach there might be | 1:46:11 | 1:46:16 | |
at a rate that as part of that,
those who took part in the events in | 1:46:16 | 1:46:26 | |
Haiti in 2011. My summary as part of
today's evidence session, it has | 1:46:26 | 1:46:31 | |
been striking how much you have
apologised over the last two hours | 1:46:31 | 1:46:34 | |
which I think partly reflects the
scale of this scandal and therefore | 1:46:34 | 1:46:38 | |
there was a lot to apologise for
what I do appreciate the tone of the | 1:46:38 | 1:46:41 | |
evidence you have given today.
Clearly there is a set of issues | 1:46:41 | 1:46:47 | |
about what happened in 2011 and what
has happened since where Oxfam would | 1:46:47 | 1:46:51 | |
appear to have put their reputation
ahead of their beneficiaries and | 1:46:51 | 1:46:55 | |
have all said today that is
something from which you want to | 1:46:55 | 1:46:57 | |
learn and I welcome that, I welcome
the fact you have said it is about | 1:46:57 | 1:47:02 | |
deeds, not words, and it is clear
from the evidence we will explore | 1:47:02 | 1:47:06 | |
this with the other two panels, that
this is a much wider issue across | 1:47:06 | 1:47:10 | |
the sector, that there is a set of
challenges across the sector and | 1:47:10 | 1:47:16 | |
that these are not new issues and
the world has known about them for a | 1:47:16 | 1:47:19 | |
very long time. My closing comment
to you is, you have both got to get | 1:47:19 | 1:47:24 | |
your house in order and demonstrated
the British people that you're | 1:47:24 | 1:47:27 | |
getting your house in order, but
thank you for giving this evidence | 1:47:27 | 1:47:30 | |
today. If I can invite our second
panel. | 1:47:30 | 1:47:43 | |
There was a lot of ground that we
wanted to cover as the committee | 1:48:34 | 1:48:38 | |
with the previous panel. My plan at
the moment is to run this second | 1:48:38 | 1:48:44 | |
panel for probably about 25 minutes
so we would look to be taking | 1:48:44 | 1:48:48 | |
evidence from DFID at around 1:45pm.
As with our normal practice, we go | 1:48:48 | 1:48:56 | |
straight to questions -- 12:45pm. In
2002, Save the Children produced a | 1:48:56 | 1:49:07 | |
report on sexual exploitation of
women and children by aid workers | 1:49:07 | 1:49:12 | |
and peacekeepers. Save the Children
then published a further report in | 1:49:12 | 1:49:19 | |
2008, a decade ago, which came to
similar conclusions. Can you be | 1:49:19 | 1:49:25 | |
confident that Save the Children
staff have not been involved in the | 1:49:25 | 1:49:27 | |
kind of abuse we have been healing
about at Oxfam? If I could start by | 1:49:27 | 1:49:35 | |
saying that I am utterly appalled by
the type of practices that have come | 1:49:35 | 1:49:39 | |
to light as a result of
investigative journalism, a few | 1:49:39 | 1:49:43 | |
inquiries, the work of others, both
shocked and appalled. This is an | 1:49:43 | 1:49:51 | |
issue that has been on our agenda
for a very long time. Both of those | 1:49:51 | 1:49:56 | |
reports you mentioned highlighted
the role of powerful men as | 1:49:56 | 1:50:05 | |
gatekeepers to food, to shelter and
two security. -- to security. And | 1:50:05 | 1:50:14 | |
the concerns of the people who felt
unsafe and unprotected I think what | 1:50:14 | 1:50:19 | |
has come to light over the past
couple of weeks cautions all of us | 1:50:19 | 1:50:27 | |
against it. If I sat here and told
you I thought we were doing enough, | 1:50:27 | 1:50:32 | |
that would be complacency. We are
absolutely not complacent. We had to | 1:50:32 | 1:50:37 | |
strengthen our systems across all of
our programmes and we are working to | 1:50:37 | 1:50:40 | |
do that with our colleagues in Save
the Children. We had to strengthen | 1:50:40 | 1:50:45 | |
our assistance even the UK. My
colleague Steve Reeves is head of | 1:50:45 | 1:50:50 | |
our safeguarding operation. I've
seen it argued that if you work in a | 1:50:50 | 1:50:58 | |
difficult and dangerous place, and
you should somehow be subjected to a | 1:50:58 | 1:51:02 | |
different set of rules, that the
standards should be lower. There is | 1:51:02 | 1:51:05 | |
only one rule to our organisation
and that is that you treat other | 1:51:05 | 1:51:12 | |
people as you would expect to be
treated yourself and that is the | 1:51:12 | 1:51:17 | |
standard all of us have to work
towards. I welcome the fact you said | 1:51:17 | 1:51:21 | |
it. Do you think it is a huge
collective failure by the sector, by | 1:51:21 | 1:51:25 | |
governments, by the UN that you
published this report with the UN | 1:51:25 | 1:51:29 | |
agency 16 years ago and this was
discussed at the world of | 1:51:29 | 1:51:37 | |
humanitarian summit in 2016, but it
feels as though it has taken the | 1:51:37 | 1:51:44 | |
Times and other media outlets to
really focus this attention. I was | 1:51:44 | 1:51:50 | |
at the summit and it was widely
discussed and has been in previous | 1:51:50 | 1:51:55 | |
summits. This is a subject that is
known about. You use the word | 1:51:55 | 1:52:02 | |
collective failure and I think that
is a very important phrasing because | 1:52:02 | 1:52:06 | |
all of us as individual agencies
have to get our house in order on a | 1:52:06 | 1:52:11 | |
no excuses basis. That is my
responsibility as CEO of Save the | 1:52:11 | 1:52:15 | |
Children in the UK. The problem we
have is that if you tip poison into | 1:52:15 | 1:52:22 | |
a river, everyone who uses that
river will get affected by it. Even | 1:52:22 | 1:52:28 | |
the UK, we have very strong
screening procedures because we are | 1:52:28 | 1:52:32 | |
the children's charity -- we are a
children's charity and as a sector | 1:52:32 | 1:52:40 | |
we would benefit from legislation
established a it worked as a | 1:52:40 | 1:52:42 | |
regulated sector that we can't just
apply that in the UK. We need a | 1:52:42 | 1:52:54 | |
globalisation of the system. It is
because of the volume of people and | 1:52:54 | 1:52:58 | |
vulnerability of people we work with
that we need that system. In the | 1:52:58 | 1:53:02 | |
course of my first year of working
at Save the Children, I have had | 1:53:02 | 1:53:07 | |
cause to visit Somalia twice, Yemen,
northeast Nigeria, and it is very | 1:53:07 | 1:53:17 | |
difficult to put into words, when
you speak to someone who has been | 1:53:17 | 1:53:23 | |
uprooted from their home,
traumatised by violence, | 1:53:23 | 1:53:29 | |
impoverished, a mother who doesn't
know where their next meal of her | 1:53:29 | 1:53:33 | |
child is coming from, that is
vulnerability and that is why there | 1:53:33 | 1:53:37 | |
is only one standard we should ever
apply in our sector. you said last | 1:53:37 | 1:53:43 | |
week that predatory paedophiles are
particularly attracted to seek out | 1:53:43 | 1:53:49 | |
this sort of work. Will you
elaborate on that? The point I was | 1:53:49 | 1:53:54 | |
making, I'm not sure if I mentioned
predatory paedophiles, I certainly | 1:53:54 | 1:53:58 | |
mentioned predatory men who insert
themselves into positions of power | 1:53:58 | 1:54:02 | |
as gatekeepers because for those
people I have just described, the | 1:54:02 | 1:54:07 | |
person who has access, the person
who can provide you with security, | 1:54:07 | 1:54:12 | |
that is a person of of great power
and the regulatory system is surely | 1:54:12 | 1:54:18 | |
to constrain arbitrary power and
protect people from the abuse of | 1:54:18 | 1:54:22 | |
arbitrary power. It is a consistent
thing in all of the cases you have | 1:54:22 | 1:54:30 | |
mentioned. Can you tell us the sort
of process that is followed in Save | 1:54:30 | 1:54:36 | |
the Children when there is an
allegation of sexual misconduct? We | 1:54:36 | 1:54:43 | |
have a single reporting line that
goes straight through to designated | 1:54:43 | 1:54:46 | |
staff who are trained specifically
to deal with allegations around the | 1:54:46 | 1:54:49 | |
safety of children and those staff
will get training and supervising on | 1:54:49 | 1:54:56 | |
a weekly basis for the work that
they do and all concerns allegations | 1:54:56 | 1:55:03 | |
are reported to statutory agencies
across the UK, even law enforcement | 1:55:03 | 1:55:10 | |
-- either law enforcement or social
care or the NSPCC if it is difficult | 1:55:10 | 1:55:15 | |
to identify the child's geographical
location. We then work the special | 1:55:15 | 1:55:22 | |
agencies on the basis we do not want
to hamper their investigations. We | 1:55:22 | 1:55:28 | |
have a process where we would to
suspend individuals as soon as we | 1:55:28 | 1:55:31 | |
were cleared to do so by statutory
agencies, we would await the outcome | 1:55:31 | 1:55:36 | |
of their investigations. Once we got
the result of those investigations, | 1:55:36 | 1:55:40 | |
if there is more work we felt we
needed to do to satisfy ourselves, | 1:55:40 | 1:55:44 | |
the better the outcome, we would
conduct an internal investigation | 1:55:44 | 1:55:48 | |
but for somebody who might commit an
offence against a child, we would | 1:55:48 | 1:55:55 | |
take that very seriously. From the
evidence we've seen about Oxfam, | 1:55:55 | 1:56:01 | |
there were two issues, one is about
the size of the team that is working | 1:56:01 | 1:56:04 | |
on safeguarding. The second is about
their access to and how easily they | 1:56:04 | 1:56:12 | |
were taken by senior people within
the organisation. Are you confident | 1:56:12 | 1:56:18 | |
you have the resources you need to
deal with these sorts of | 1:56:18 | 1:56:21 | |
allegations? I've been in save the
chosen for just over four years. I | 1:56:21 | 1:56:28 | |
started as a sole member of staff
and they now lead a team of six, | 1:56:28 | 1:56:31 | |
three of whom are targeted
specifically on overseas and | 1:56:31 | 1:56:34 | |
humanitarian child safeguarding. I'm
a member of the corporate leadership | 1:56:34 | 1:56:41 | |
team, so I'm a relatively senior
member of the team in my own right, | 1:56:41 | 1:56:45 | |
but I report to the executive team.
I meet with them on a biweekly basis | 1:56:45 | 1:56:52 | |
for our area. Periodically, we have
people like a trustee who I meet. | 1:56:52 | 1:57:01 | |
how often would you meet the
trustee? It depends on availability, | 1:57:01 | 1:57:06 | |
it's every five or six weeks but we
would report back if anything crops | 1:57:06 | 1:57:12 | |
up that we think is significant and
the trustee should be aware of, we | 1:57:12 | 1:57:18 | |
would make the call and have a
conversation and our trustees are | 1:57:18 | 1:57:23 | |
very responsive. I send reports to
the trustee body on a regular basis | 1:57:23 | 1:57:27 | |
and our audit committee. I find
little criticism with the way in | 1:57:27 | 1:57:34 | |
which our organisation works from
our perspective. If I have issues | 1:57:34 | 1:57:42 | |
with senior leaders, they have been
addressed and I don't have any | 1:57:42 | 1:57:44 | |
complaints about the way in which my
team are treated by senior members. | 1:57:44 | 1:57:53 | |
to draw the distinction between
predatory males and predatory | 1:57:53 | 1:57:58 | |
paedophiles, with your work in the
UK context with Save the Children, | 1:57:58 | 1:58:06 | |
would you realise there is a
propensity for people to apply to | 1:58:06 | 1:58:13 | |
certain jobs because it gives them
access? And have you got any | 1:58:13 | 1:58:18 | |
evidence to say that Oxfam is the
tip of the iceberg and that actually | 1:58:18 | 1:58:21 | |
there predatory paedophiles is
actively seeking work in war-torn | 1:58:21 | 1:58:30 | |
countries because they can access
prostitution? Prostitution seems | 1:58:30 | 1:58:43 | |
like paving over it, it is people
who are underage, it is paedophilia. | 1:58:43 | 1:58:50 | |
Is this systematic? Is clear over
the course of media revelations that | 1:58:50 | 1:58:57 | |
sexual abuse of children in the UK
is far more prevalent than ever. | 1:58:57 | 1:59:00 | |
People might have thought before.
The national crime agency talks | 1:59:00 | 1:59:05 | |
about one in 35 adult males in the
UK having some form of paedophilic | 1:59:05 | 1:59:09 | |
tendency. It is research that talks
about 1% of the adult population of | 1:59:09 | 1:59:17 | |
men having interest in children
sexually. A cause for the most | 1:59:17 | 1:59:25 | |
vulnerable children should be
operating with the major those | 1:59:25 | 1:59:27 | |
people will seek out opportunities
to access children and will seek out | 1:59:27 | 1:59:31 | |
access to children in places where
jurisdictions are weaker, where | 1:59:31 | 1:59:36 | |
regulations are put and therefore it
is the job of organisations to up | 1:59:36 | 1:59:39 | |
their game to meet the gap between
regulation in jurisdictions and the | 1:59:39 | 1:59:46 | |
risk that may be posed to children.
I started my career in the UK system | 1:59:46 | 1:59:55 | |
with safeguarding, which were many
people may criticise the way it | 1:59:55 | 1:59:59 | |
operates, it gives a solid framework
to organisations around the way it | 1:59:59 | 2:00:03 | |
gets its staff, the provision of
local authority designated officers | 2:00:03 | 2:00:08 | |
and local authorities where
employers are obliged to report | 2:00:08 | 2:00:11 | |
concerns. When you start working on
a global scale, that framework is | 2:00:11 | 2:00:15 | |
absent and what we have been doing
over the last two or three years is | 2:00:15 | 2:00:20 | |
trying essentially to create an
element of that framework in the way | 2:00:20 | 2:00:23 | |
we do our business. We think there
is a lot of best practice and | 2:00:23 | 2:00:28 | |
underworld saw our work is about
creating an equivalent of the system | 2:00:28 | 2:00:33 | |
on a global scale and resetting and
innovating the way we tackle these | 2:00:33 | 2:00:38 | |
things, it is critical, but there
are people with a sexual interest in | 2:00:38 | 2:00:44 | |
children who actively seek out the
opportunity to work with children. | 2:00:44 | 2:00:48 | |
It's a very considerable problem. We
know there are large numbers of | 2:00:48 | 2:00:51 | |
those people and we know that they
will seek out access into | 2:00:51 | 2:00:55 | |
organisations that appear to be
weaker and work in places where the | 2:00:55 | 2:00:58 | |
protection for children appear to be
put. | 2:00:58 | 2:01:06 | |
One in 35 had paedophilic
tendencies. Are we saying there can | 2:01:06 | 2:01:12 | |
be more in the development community
for the same reasons? As you would | 2:01:12 | 2:01:19 | |
expect there to be more than that in
volunteering youth groups or | 2:01:19 | 2:01:24 | |
applying for roles were vulnerable
available. Certainly that is a | 2:01:24 | 2:01:30 | |
figure that the National Crime
Agency has talked about. One in 35 | 2:01:30 | 2:01:33 | |
adult males. They also talk about
50,000 adults in the UK who may be | 2:01:33 | 2:01:40 | |
accessing children on a regular
basis. We are trying to establish | 2:01:40 | 2:01:46 | |
the nature of the scale of the risk
to children in the UK. We do know it | 2:01:46 | 2:01:50 | |
is significant. We know that a
number of people target | 2:01:50 | 2:01:53 | |
organisations and that the level of
abuse reported, as far as we are | 2:01:53 | 2:02:04 | |
aware, is even in a developed
context. Five to 7% of child abuse | 2:02:04 | 2:02:11 | |
will ever be reported at all. That
is in the context where we would | 2:02:11 | 2:02:14 | |
hope police would be supportive,
social care, health services. We | 2:02:14 | 2:02:21 | |
then move into jurisdictions where
that appears to be largely absent. | 2:02:21 | 2:02:26 | |
It becomes even more challenging. I
think it is almost beyond doubt that | 2:02:26 | 2:02:32 | |
there is more abuse appearing then
we know about. I think the message | 2:02:32 | 2:02:36 | |
to organisations should be that we
should behave as though this abuse | 2:02:36 | 2:02:39 | |
is happening, even if we see no
evidence of it, because we know it | 2:02:39 | 2:02:45 | |
almost certainly is and we should
behave as if it is happening, even | 2:02:45 | 2:02:48 | |
if we see no direct evidence.
I want to talk about some of the | 2:02:48 | 2:02:54 | |
proposals you have made to the
Secretary of State. We need to look | 2:02:54 | 2:02:58 | |
at some of these numbers. There are
clearly more to come out. We can't | 2:02:58 | 2:03:03 | |
look at the proposals without a
context of the size of the problem. | 2:03:03 | 2:03:08 | |
I have got a horrible feeling we're
really just scratching the surface | 2:03:08 | 2:03:11 | |
of this problem. On the initial
proposals you have brought forward, | 2:03:11 | 2:03:16 | |
what are the key proposals within
that that you think are absolutely | 2:03:16 | 2:03:19 | |
essential? We have a number of
proposals. There are some which are | 2:03:19 | 2:03:29 | |
achievable over the shorter term,
something is slightly longer term. | 2:03:29 | 2:03:33 | |
Kevin rightly as pointed out the
fact we have a system in the UK | 2:03:33 | 2:03:36 | |
about how we regulate criminal
records checks. One of the committee | 2:03:36 | 2:03:42 | |
members asked our colleagues in
Oxfam about that. The regulations | 2:03:42 | 2:03:48 | |
around access to criminal records
checks in the UK are very complex. | 2:03:48 | 2:03:51 | |
They are complicated in a of ways.
And they work primarily on the basis | 2:03:51 | 2:03:58 | |
for how intense and frequent the
contact between children and | 2:03:58 | 2:04:01 | |
professionals is. And the real
struggle that we would have is that | 2:04:01 | 2:04:05 | |
we have staff with contact with
children over short periods of time. | 2:04:05 | 2:04:11 | |
We found the regulatory environment
around DVS checks quite challenging. | 2:04:11 | 2:04:15 | |
We use the system quite actively. We
spent in excess of £100,000 last | 2:04:15 | 2:04:20 | |
year. Stipulating that working in an
agency like ours is regulated | 2:04:20 | 2:04:28 | |
activity, regardless of the level of
access to children, it is always | 2:04:28 | 2:04:35 | |
regulated activity. The amount of
transactional cost involved in | 2:04:35 | 2:04:41 | |
trying to assess the level of check
involved individual staff is quite | 2:04:41 | 2:04:47 | |
astonishing. That would be a
short-term peace we think would be | 2:04:47 | 2:04:49 | |
relevant. We did work with Interpol
over a couple of years attempting to | 2:04:49 | 2:04:56 | |
establish a global criminal records
chest -- checking system. We part | 2:04:56 | 2:05:01 | |
funded a feasibility study to get us
over the line. That stalled at the | 2:05:01 | 2:05:04 | |
Interpol and in terms of their
willingness to deal with some of the | 2:05:04 | 2:05:09 | |
administrative and financial aspects
of that. We think those issues could | 2:05:09 | 2:05:13 | |
be overcome relatively simply.
If I could just add very briefly to | 2:05:13 | 2:05:23 | |
that, I've heard the argument over
the past few days that the | 2:05:23 | 2:05:28 | |
humanitarian passport system that we
and other agencies have advocated, | 2:05:28 | 2:05:31 | |
that it would be terribly
constipated and difficult to put in | 2:05:31 | 2:05:35 | |
operation because we don't actually
have a global multinational | 2:05:35 | 2:05:38 | |
framework for doing it. My short
answer to that problem is create | 2:05:38 | 2:05:42 | |
one. This is clearly a confiscated
problem. But the consequences of not | 2:05:42 | 2:05:50 | |
dealing with it, in human terms, are
utterly appalling, leaving aside the | 2:05:50 | 2:05:54 | |
reputational effects. What I would
say just in addition to the point | 2:05:54 | 2:06:01 | |
that Steve has made is every year we
reach around 20 to 22 million | 2:06:01 | 2:06:11 | |
children, providing life-saving
attritional interventions, health | 2:06:11 | 2:06:13 | |
support, educational support. If we
get this one thing wrong, this one | 2:06:13 | 2:06:21 | |
area of regulator except the wrong,
the whole house of cards comes down. | 2:06:21 | 2:06:26 | |
-- this one area of regulator
activity. I have a thousand people | 2:06:26 | 2:06:32 | |
are coming to our office in
Faringdon every day, dedicated | 2:06:32 | 2:06:35 | |
professionals who want us to be out
there on the front line working with | 2:06:35 | 2:06:38 | |
children. This is a condition for
making that possible. | 2:06:38 | 2:06:46 | |
A couple of quick things. We are
talking about vulnerable women and | 2:06:46 | 2:06:49 | |
girls, mainly. Is there any evidence
of young boys being abused as well? | 2:06:49 | 2:06:56 | |
And are they being abused by men or
women? You talked about having been | 2:06:56 | 2:07:06 | |
in the organisation for a few years,
not Ridgers length of time. How many | 2:07:06 | 2:07:10 | |
women have come forward to say they
have been abused in that period of | 2:07:10 | 2:07:16 | |
time? And are the women mainly
people who are the vulnerable women | 2:07:16 | 2:07:21 | |
you are trying to help, or are they
within the staff body, who are also | 2:07:21 | 2:07:25 | |
being abused by predatory men? The
first part, globally, it's pretty | 2:07:25 | 2:07:36 | |
clear that girls and young women are
most frequently victims of sexual | 2:07:36 | 2:07:40 | |
avoidance. Di spoke -- violence. We
do see evidence of boys and young | 2:07:40 | 2:07:49 | |
men being exploited in the same way.
As far as we can tell from the | 2:07:49 | 2:07:52 | |
research available, this is abuse
largely perpetrated by men, although | 2:07:52 | 2:07:58 | |
we shouldn't discount the
possibility that somebody engaging | 2:07:58 | 2:08:04 | |
in this behaviour is largely
perpetrated by men. We do see | 2:08:04 | 2:08:10 | |
evidence of boys being harmed. There
is some evidence about crossover | 2:08:10 | 2:08:13 | |
offending, the importance of gender
for victims -- of victims for a | 2:08:13 | 2:08:18 | |
certain kind of offenders. I don't
think that is terribly significant | 2:08:18 | 2:08:22 | |
in terms of how an agency might
respond. In terms of people coming | 2:08:22 | 2:08:29 | |
forward, my role, very clearly, in
the organisation is about the | 2:08:29 | 2:08:35 | |
protection of children. My role is
that children are positive | 2:08:35 | 2:08:42 | |
experiences of the organisation. I
don't have direct responsibility for | 2:08:42 | 2:08:46 | |
the management of allegations that
may come to light about adults | 2:08:46 | 2:08:50 | |
harming other adults. That would be
a leadership responsibility for | 2:08:50 | 2:08:51 | |
Kevin.
Do you want to answer that specific | 2:08:51 | 2:08:56 | |
issue? What I can tell you, I don't
want to give you incorrect numbers, | 2:08:56 | 2:09:04 | |
so this is very tentative. We're
reporting to Dfid on Monday a full | 2:09:04 | 2:09:11 | |
breakdown of our figures. On the
child safeguarding challenges, we | 2:09:11 | 2:09:17 | |
have 193 cases in 2016,
comprehensive data. Around 53 of | 2:09:17 | 2:09:27 | |
those were taken to full
investigation. Around 20 of those | 2:09:27 | 2:09:30 | |
cases, the files were handed over to
the police. And 11 people were | 2:09:30 | 2:09:34 | |
dismissed. The thing that is always
difficult about these exercises is | 2:09:34 | 2:09:40 | |
to know whether you are cutting the
tip of the iceberg or you are | 2:09:40 | 2:09:44 | |
catching the iceberg itself. --
catching the tip of the iceberg. The | 2:09:44 | 2:09:50 | |
system we have to build is about
creating a culture in every single | 2:09:50 | 2:09:54 | |
one of our offices, where people
feel safe enough to come forward and | 2:09:54 | 2:09:57 | |
report on these matters. What is the
split, would you say, between | 2:09:57 | 2:10:04 | |
vulnerable women and girls in
different countries, compared with | 2:10:04 | 2:10:09 | |
women working for your organisation
who are being abused, or there are | 2:10:09 | 2:10:15 | |
many were trying to abuse them
within your system? We also have | 2:10:15 | 2:10:22 | |
investigations on sexual harassment.
I'm not just talking about Save the | 2:10:22 | 2:10:26 | |
Children UK. This is as part of Save
the Children International. I know | 2:10:26 | 2:10:30 | |
this is a bit confusing. It is the
programme delivery platform, which | 2:10:30 | 2:10:33 | |
we share with Save the Children from
the United States, Scandinavia Omid | 2:10:33 | 2:10:41 | |
Germany, Australia and others. In
those investigations last year we | 2:10:41 | 2:10:47 | |
had 35 cases reported. Again, please
take these numbers as tentative. We | 2:10:47 | 2:10:52 | |
had 35 cases reported. From memory,
19 of them resulted in staff | 2:10:52 | 2:10:59 | |
dismissals. I don't remember the
number of files handed over to | 2:10:59 | 2:11:06 | |
police. It gives you some sense.
Thank you. Some questions about the | 2:11:06 | 2:11:16 | |
suggestions you have made. In terms
of regulated activity, if we brought | 2:11:16 | 2:11:23 | |
that in, how quick could
organisations such as yourselves | 2:11:23 | 2:11:28 | |
then implemented to ensure that all
your workers were checked and you | 2:11:28 | 2:11:32 | |
were abiding by the regulated
activity requirements under DVS? | 2:11:32 | 2:11:39 | |
From our perspective that would
happen very promptly. We criminal | 2:11:39 | 2:11:43 | |
records check every single member of
staff in our organisation. Regulated | 2:11:43 | 2:11:50 | |
activity would provide a single
level. Would you be able to | 2:11:50 | 2:12:00 | |
implement the enhanced level within
a month if we introduced it? | 2:12:00 | 2:12:05 | |
Relatively short order, yes. You
said there was some financial | 2:12:05 | 2:12:12 | |
stalling. Do you know what kind of
order of money that Interpol... Have | 2:12:12 | 2:12:21 | |
you heard any kind of figure? There
have been some conversations about | 2:12:21 | 2:12:29 | |
how the systems might be financed.
That may be a significant technology | 2:12:29 | 2:12:37 | |
spend. The real crux for me came at
some of the stakeholder meetings. | 2:12:37 | 2:12:44 | |
From our perspective we spend well
in excess of £100,000 a year on | 2:12:44 | 2:12:48 | |
checking her starve. But the system
only works if a small Ugandan | 2:12:48 | 2:12:53 | |
orphanage can also afford that
check. So actually just simply | 2:12:53 | 2:12:59 | |
dividing that cost by the people you
think might use it is not a workable | 2:12:59 | 2:13:03 | |
way to ensure that the very
smallest... If the British gum gave | 2:13:03 | 2:13:13 | |
a donation for ten years to run that
system, would that be realistic? We | 2:13:13 | 2:13:20 | |
need to take a lead. Certainly. We
had some set up costs that we may be | 2:13:20 | 2:13:27 | |
able to provide. Interpol may be
able to provide a figure quite | 2:13:27 | 2:13:32 | |
rapidly at this point. If I may,
there are two parts to this. There | 2:13:32 | 2:13:40 | |
is a part that the UK government can
lead and drive, which I think is | 2:13:40 | 2:13:44 | |
what you are getting at. There is
also a broader international | 2:13:44 | 2:13:49 | |
leadership role. We need some sort
of international framework. The UK | 2:13:49 | 2:13:56 | |
government, I believe, could play a
critical role in helping establish | 2:13:56 | 2:13:58 | |
that. There are a number of vehicles
that could be considered. For | 2:13:58 | 2:14:05 | |
example, as an administrative
entity. We put a proposal for | 2:14:05 | 2:14:12 | |
discussion into Dfid towards the end
of last year. That was on the idea | 2:14:12 | 2:14:16 | |
of a centre of global excellence on
safeguarding. | 2:14:16 | 2:14:25 | |
Properly constructed, that centres
could potentially help to oversee a | 2:14:25 | 2:14:29 | |
local database but more critically,
it could insert people into | 2:14:29 | 2:14:34 | |
difficult areas because if you think
of the crisis, he has 800,000 | 2:14:34 | 2:14:41 | |
people, a movement of people bigger
than the city of Newcastle from one | 2:14:41 | 2:14:45 | |
place to another in the space of a
couple of months. What happens when | 2:14:45 | 2:14:51 | |
that crisis erupts is we sent in our
water people, the people providing | 2:14:51 | 2:15:00 | |
education, and there is no one of
the moment is really surging in a | 2:15:00 | 2:15:05 | |
safeguarding team that can ensure
there is a proper level of | 2:15:05 | 2:15:07 | |
protection. We would have to pool
our resources as a sector to do this | 2:15:07 | 2:15:14 | |
effectively and if pulling is what
it takes, that's what we need to do | 2:15:14 | 2:15:22 | |
-- pooling. What you think the wider
implications for the aids sector | 2:15:22 | 2:15:27 | |
following these scandals? -- aid
sector. The journalists who brought | 2:15:27 | 2:15:41 | |
these stories to light have turned
the light on horrible stuff which we | 2:15:41 | 2:15:44 | |
as a sector have to take
responsibility for as have to take | 2:15:44 | 2:15:48 | |
responsibility for fixing. Our first
order of priority is we need to | 2:15:48 | 2:15:53 | |
recognise that this is not the
occasional bad apple we're dealing | 2:15:53 | 2:15:57 | |
with, this is a structural and
systemic problem that we have to | 2:15:57 | 2:16:01 | |
deal with through proper
integration. There is a wider set of | 2:16:01 | 2:16:08 | |
damage to the trust that UK public
put in us to deliver on incredibly | 2:16:08 | 2:16:15 | |
jealous population in the UK to some
of the most vulnerable people in the | 2:16:15 | 2:16:20 | |
world and trust is our most precious
commodity. If that goes, and ability | 2:16:20 | 2:16:25 | |
to play the linking global be
damaged. There is an issue of trust | 2:16:25 | 2:16:29 | |
with the sector and the Department
for International Development. All | 2:16:29 | 2:16:33 | |
of these things have to be the belt.
One of the things that concerns me | 2:16:33 | 2:16:39 | |
is that I have seen the argument
surfacing that this is now all | 2:16:39 | 2:16:47 | |
about... And I think this is an
opportunistic, misplaced way of | 2:16:47 | 2:16:52 | |
looking at the problem. This is a
real problem, it is systemic and | 2:16:52 | 2:16:59 | |
large-scale and we have to fix it by
duty age -- but UK aid is the most | 2:16:59 | 2:17:07 | |
effective and accountable aid in the
world. It makes enormous difference | 2:17:07 | 2:17:11 | |
to children all around the world
working with us and other agencies. | 2:17:11 | 2:17:16 | |
We cannot afford to allow this issue
to pollute the wider discussion | 2:17:16 | 2:17:23 | |
about the role of the UK in aid
leadership. As a follow-up, it took | 2:17:23 | 2:17:31 | |
external reporters to largely
exposes this scandal. -- expose this | 2:17:31 | 2:17:42 | |
scandal. Do you think the aid sector
as a whole is capable of bringing | 2:17:42 | 2:17:46 | |
its house into order? If I didn't
believe that, I wouldn't be working | 2:17:46 | 2:17:53 | |
in the sector. Our organisation is
staffed by incredibly professional | 2:17:53 | 2:18:02 | |
and committed people. We can resolve
this problem. I know there is a view | 2:18:02 | 2:18:10 | |
that the sector is being given a
hard time by the media and that in | 2:18:10 | 2:18:14 | |
some way we are victims. It is only
one victim in this and that is the | 2:18:14 | 2:18:19 | |
people who have at their lives
shattered I some of these practices. | 2:18:19 | 2:18:24 | |
The other victims of the people who
lose trust that prevents us doing | 2:18:24 | 2:18:29 | |
what we need to do so I am totally
convinced that we can fix it and I'm | 2:18:29 | 2:18:34 | |
totally committed to Save the
Children playing a leadership role | 2:18:34 | 2:18:41 | |
in that. I was concerned when you
said "We could do with legislation", | 2:18:41 | 2:18:48 | |
it sounded like abdication of
responsibility but you have gone | 2:18:48 | 2:18:54 | |
back on that. But you could you talk
about... Clearly at the UN are going | 2:18:54 | 2:19:05 | |
to play a big role and clearly DFID
should stop giving money to any | 2:19:05 | 2:19:09 | |
organisation that doesn't move in
the direction we wanted to, but | 2:19:09 | 2:19:13 | |
surely the answer is never to wait
for legislation. What can Save the | 2:19:13 | 2:19:18 | |
Children do now, immediately, and
move on to protect yourself from the | 2:19:18 | 2:19:24 | |
critique that you're abdicating
responsibility by saying it is | 2:19:24 | 2:19:28 | |
Government, it is legislation, it is
too complex, it is something for the | 2:19:28 | 2:19:32 | |
United Nations? God help us if we're
going to have to wait for the United | 2:19:32 | 2:19:36 | |
Nations! That couple to -- that
cavalry might take some time to | 2:19:36 | 2:19:43 | |
arrive. Can I be clear, I did not
say waiting for legislation. What we | 2:19:43 | 2:19:48 | |
need to do as a sector is to act now
with urgency. I believe there is a | 2:19:48 | 2:19:59 | |
great responsibility on the major
NGOs in this country to come | 2:19:59 | 2:20:06 | |
together and start framing practical
solutions. The legislation we have | 2:20:06 | 2:20:13 | |
mentioned about regulated employment
would help. It would strengthen one | 2:20:13 | 2:20:18 | |
part of the system but there is
plenty of other things we can do, | 2:20:18 | 2:20:22 | |
both to get our own house is in
order. One thing we're doing at Save | 2:20:22 | 2:20:29 | |
the Children UK with our
international partners in | 2:20:29 | 2:20:31 | |
strengthening our safeguarding
systems across the world. We want a | 2:20:31 | 2:20:37 | |
focal point in the 125 countries
that we operate in to Save the | 2:20:37 | 2:20:45 | |
Children International. That has to
be strengthened. We need to come up | 2:20:45 | 2:20:48 | |
with ideas. That is our job. We
obviously really appreciate the idea | 2:20:48 | 2:20:55 | |
is that you are generating, the
inquiry that you mentioned, but we | 2:20:55 | 2:21:00 | |
can't sit around and wait for summit
else to come and solve this problem. | 2:21:00 | 2:21:04 | |
This is our problem. We need to
generate the ideas for solving it | 2:21:04 | 2:21:07 | |
and I think they're are good ideas
out there. We have tried some of | 2:21:07 | 2:21:11 | |
them. The challenge is to move very
quickly and to build the coalitions | 2:21:11 | 2:21:14 | |
that we need to and Bond is a
critical part of that. Thank you, | 2:21:14 | 2:21:24 | |
please feel free to stay to listen
to the final panel. | 2:21:24 | 2:21:37 | |
Thank you for joining us and for
your patience, we are running behind | 2:22:03 | 2:22:07 | |
schedule. Our usual practice, we
invite you to introduce yourself | 2:22:07 | 2:22:12 | |
when you first answer a question.
Nearly two years ago, I went to the | 2:22:12 | 2:22:20 | |
wild humanitarian summit in Istanbul
where I learned from a committee, a | 2:22:20 | 2:22:26 | |
panel that was talking, that sexual
abuse was happening by NGOs by UN | 2:22:26 | 2:22:34 | |
peacekeeping forces as well, which
is another issue, but it was common | 2:22:34 | 2:22:41 | |
knowledge but nobody really knew how
to deal with it, so I came back and | 2:22:41 | 2:22:44 | |
wrote to the Secretary of State at
the time saying that DFID is | 2:22:44 | 2:22:49 | |
respected around the world. We
should be leading this, an | 2:22:49 | 2:22:53 | |
international register should be
setup for people who in the sector. | 2:22:53 | 2:22:59 | |
I got a letter back from the civil
servants saying that actually, this | 2:22:59 | 2:23:07 | |
is just too difficult. It was in the
too difficult to do box and we | 2:23:07 | 2:23:12 | |
couldn't tackle it. We had a similar
letter back after our chairman wrote | 2:23:12 | 2:23:19 | |
on the previous committee basically
saying the same sort of thing. We | 2:23:19 | 2:23:24 | |
have heard from Oxfam and Save the
Children. Save the Children appear | 2:23:24 | 2:23:29 | |
to be doing this, Oxfam say they're
going to do it. Why do you think | 2:23:29 | 2:23:33 | |
that we cannot do this? Have a
global register for aid workers? It | 2:23:33 | 2:23:39 | |
is clearly absolutely necessary. If
the money we spend is going to | 2:23:39 | 2:23:44 | |
protect vulnerable women and girls
in incredibly difficult | 2:23:44 | 2:23:49 | |
circumstances, I am sure this is
happening in the Rohingya refugee | 2:23:49 | 2:24:00 | |
camps and other places around the
world. Why do you believe DFID | 2:24:00 | 2:24:03 | |
cannot start a global register and
hold its other people can do the | 2:24:03 | 2:24:07 | |
same sort of service as the
safeguarding services do currently? | 2:24:07 | 2:24:15 | |
It is a no-brainer, we have to do
it. My name is Matthew Rycroft, I am | 2:24:15 | 2:24:26 | |
the permanent secretary at DFID. I
understand you are new to the job so | 2:24:26 | 2:24:32 | |
it is slightly unfair but you bring
a fresh view to this so I think it | 2:24:32 | 2:24:35 | |
is fair to ask you these questions.
All of your questions are there and | 2:24:35 | 2:24:40 | |
I look forward to answering all of
them today and in future. Let me | 2:24:40 | 2:24:43 | |
begin by saying how shocking these
issues are and these incidents have | 2:24:43 | 2:24:48 | |
been and let me agree with you that
this is an issue that the United | 2:24:48 | 2:24:52 | |
Kingdom must lead on in terms of
this response and that is what the | 2:24:52 | 2:24:56 | |
Secretary of State for International
Development is determined to do. She | 2:24:56 | 2:25:00 | |
has written to all of the UK-based
charities to make sure and to tell | 2:25:00 | 2:25:05 | |
us what their systems are to put in
place all of their safeguarding. We | 2:25:05 | 2:25:10 | |
are doing something similar with all
of our partners around the world. We | 2:25:10 | 2:25:16 | |
are going to be working with the
United Nations, who have had a | 2:25:16 | 2:25:21 | |
long-running history in relation to
allegations of sexual exploitation | 2:25:21 | 2:25:24 | |
and abuse in relation to
peacekeeping and we need to learn | 2:25:24 | 2:25:28 | |
from that. We need to work with the
private sector and other Government | 2:25:28 | 2:25:32 | |
departments around the British
Government for development. This is | 2:25:32 | 2:25:39 | |
a huge issue for the sector and one
of the things the Secretary of State | 2:25:39 | 2:25:45 | |
has announced is a summit on the 5th
of March with the charity sector to | 2:25:45 | 2:25:48 | |
look at the way ahead and I think
central to that summit will be an | 2:25:48 | 2:25:52 | |
analysis of the issue which you
brought back from the eastern bill | 2:25:52 | 2:25:57 | |
world humanitarian summit and which
we very much hope the sector itself | 2:25:57 | 2:26:05 | |
will put forward. Nothing is too
difficult any more, even if it ever | 2:26:05 | 2:26:09 | |
was. This is a moment where we need
to be looking with fresh eyes and | 2:26:09 | 2:26:13 | |
also with experienced eyes. Everyone
coming together, whether the adding | 2:26:13 | 2:26:21 | |
Government, the private sector, an
organisation, all of us, to make | 2:26:21 | 2:26:24 | |
sure we root out this evil and that
something good can come from the | 2:26:24 | 2:26:28 | |
crisis, which has been a breach of
trust for the people of Haiti and | 2:26:28 | 2:26:31 | |
countries like that but also for the
people of the United Kingdom who | 2:26:31 | 2:26:36 | |
give so generously to charities like
Oxfam. I think the current Secretary | 2:26:36 | 2:26:44 | |
of State has done a fantastic job
given she is new to it and she has | 2:26:44 | 2:26:49 | |
had to go out there and say some
pretty tough things that I think she | 2:26:49 | 2:26:52 | |
has done a good job on that but what
I have been disappointed about is | 2:26:52 | 2:26:55 | |
the previous Secretary of State did
raise his issues with the Department | 2:26:55 | 2:27:00 | |
and she was asked not to raise them,
not to bring them in speeches but | 2:27:00 | 2:27:06 | |
she continued to do so anyway which
I think was good that she did, | 2:27:06 | 2:27:11 | |
particularly in terms of the UN. We
know that peacekeepers have been | 2:27:11 | 2:27:15 | |
raping women in vulnerable
situations. You said you had been | 2:27:15 | 2:27:21 | |
working with them. What exactly are
you going to do to be able to stop | 2:27:21 | 2:27:25 | |
women being raped and abused and
children in very vulnerable | 2:27:25 | 2:27:30 | |
situations? Everybody knows it is
happening, it seems, so it appears, | 2:27:30 | 2:27:41 | |
"oh, that's OK then," but there must
be a system because the world is a | 2:27:41 | 2:27:49 | |
much smaller place now. We need to
work world to safeguard these very | 2:27:49 | 2:27:52 | |
vulnerable people so what is DFID
Ashley going to do to stop the | 2:27:52 | 2:27:57 | |
sexual abuse through the UN? The
Secretary of State is leading this | 2:27:57 | 2:28:04 | |
agenda and her predecessor did a
good job of raising this issue and I | 2:28:04 | 2:28:08 | |
remember from my previous job at the
United Nations as the British | 2:28:08 | 2:28:11 | |
ambassador in New York that it was a
big theme of the UN General Assembly | 2:28:11 | 2:28:16 | |
last September and that was because
of the previous Secretary of State | 2:28:16 | 2:28:19 | |
for International Development. The
United Nations has long had a huge | 2:28:19 | 2:28:26 | |
problem with sexual exploitation and
abuse amongst peacekeepers and the | 2:28:26 | 2:28:31 | |
UK has been helping to lead the way
in response to that so first of all, | 2:28:31 | 2:28:35 | |
the UK has doubled our contribution
to UN peacekeeping in the last | 2:28:35 | 2:28:38 | |
couple of years and we make sure
that every single one of the British | 2:28:38 | 2:28:42 | |
peacekeepers who goes to joint UN
missions has proper training on how | 2:28:42 | 2:28:47 | |
to prevent sexual exploitation and
abuse. We also offer training to | 2:28:47 | 2:28:52 | |
other contingents from other
countries who perhaps have less of a | 2:28:52 | 2:28:55 | |
tradition in this area than we
ourselves do and we are working with | 2:28:55 | 2:28:58 | |
the United Nations itself to make
sure that one part of the family of | 2:28:58 | 2:29:04 | |
organisations is able to spread best
practice to another part. One thing | 2:29:04 | 2:29:08 | |
about the UN is it such a large
bureaucracy that even if there is | 2:29:08 | 2:29:14 | |
good bureaucracy, that might not be
spreading to other parts of the UN | 2:29:14 | 2:29:17 | |
so what we were seeking to do with
the previous Secretary of State was | 2:29:17 | 2:29:21 | |
to bring together all the different
parts to the native nations to the | 2:29:21 | 2:29:24 | |
best. | 2:29:24 | 2:29:33 | |
We have to stop this abuse of the
most vulnerable people in the world. | 2:29:33 | 2:29:40 | |
Have Dfid completed a review? Yes,
the work has been completed. The | 2:29:40 | 2:29:52 | |
assurances have been met and we have
gone beyond them. We will make a | 2:29:52 | 2:29:56 | |
copy available to you right away.
Excellent. I do think this is really | 2:29:56 | 2:30:02 | |
urgent. It has been going on for
years. What I fail to understand is, | 2:30:02 | 2:30:10 | |
it is, I believe, a minority of
people in the aid sector but we need | 2:30:10 | 2:30:14 | |
to root those out. What is wrong
with those minority of men that they | 2:30:14 | 2:30:18 | |
cannot keep their trousers done up?
What is wrong with these men? Do | 2:30:18 | 2:30:28 | |
they need mental health help? If
they do, let's get them some. They | 2:30:28 | 2:30:34 | |
should not be doing this. And nobody
can believe it is right. I am not | 2:30:34 | 2:30:39 | |
going to seek to justify, explain
her excuse that behaviour. It is | 2:30:39 | 2:30:45 | |
totally inexcusable. I am not going
to go down that route. We are | 2:30:45 | 2:30:50 | |
determined to use this crisis, and
it is a crisis for the aid sector, | 2:30:50 | 2:30:54 | |
for reasons we have been hearing
about. We are determined to use this | 2:30:54 | 2:30:58 | |
crisis to get the whole of the
sector into a better shape, to root | 2:30:58 | 2:31:02 | |
out this evil wherever it occurs and
two draw on the whole of the sector | 2:31:02 | 2:31:07 | |
and beyond to get the ideas on how
best to do that. I am encouraged to | 2:31:07 | 2:31:12 | |
hear that. I hope you move very
quickly. | 2:31:12 | 2:31:17 | |
I want to turn specifically to the
events in Haiti in 2011. What did | 2:31:17 | 2:31:23 | |
Dfid know about these events? I am
going to ask my colleagues, Gerrard | 2:31:23 | 2:31:31 | |
and Beverley. Oxfam did bring to
David's attention at the time the | 2:31:31 | 2:31:36 | |
factor was an investigation into
misconduct by some members of staff. | 2:31:36 | 2:31:39 | |
Dfid. They wrote three letters, the
last giving us a summary of the | 2:31:39 | 2:31:49 | |
outcome of the investigation. At no
point was either the scale or the | 2:31:49 | 2:31:53 | |
severity of the allegations made
clear to our predecessors. | 2:31:53 | 2:32:00 | |
Since last Monday I have been
fighting singularly fur Dfid's | 2:32:00 | 2:32:11 | |
safeguarding unit. The second letter
Oxfam Road told us that the country | 2:32:11 | 2:32:14 | |
director had resigned and the
investigation would be concluded. | 2:32:14 | 2:32:19 | |
The third level reported on the
outcomes of that investigation, | 2:32:19 | 2:32:22 | |
saying there had been a breach of
the code of conduct of Oxfam. None | 2:32:22 | 2:32:27 | |
of this involved beneficiaries of
the misuse of any funds. We were | 2:32:27 | 2:32:30 | |
discussing earlier on the nature of
the meaning of the word beneficiary. | 2:32:30 | 2:32:35 | |
We understood it to be the people of
Haiti that the -- Oxfam were | 2:32:35 | 2:32:42 | |
fundraising for. In July 2015,
Oxfam's former head of global | 2:32:42 | 2:32:52 | |
safeguarding contacted Justine
Greening and informed how examples | 2:32:52 | 2:32:57 | |
of sexual misconduct in Oxfam, what
was done as a result of this and how | 2:32:57 | 2:33:02 | |
was it carried out? At this point we
can find no record of that contact. | 2:33:02 | 2:33:07 | |
We have been looking since we
received that allegation. You think | 2:33:07 | 2:33:12 | |
that is potentially a false
allegation? No, there is no record | 2:33:12 | 2:33:16 | |
of that. My understanding is a
member of Parliament then wrote to | 2:33:16 | 2:33:23 | |
the Home Secretary. We were asked
about her approach to child | 2:33:23 | 2:33:29 | |
protection policies, protecting
children between 14 and 17. In that | 2:33:29 | 2:33:34 | |
letter Justine Greening responded to
Andrew Smith, reporting how we were | 2:33:34 | 2:33:38 | |
managing our accountable grants in
terms of the absolute requirement, | 2:33:38 | 2:33:42 | |
if people see allegations and
accusations, to tell Dfid | 2:33:42 | 2:33:51 | |
immediately. That is in line with
good practice. Priti Patel has also | 2:33:51 | 2:33:59 | |
claimed the department knew about
this. What do you have to say about | 2:33:59 | 2:34:02 | |
this? I want to be clear about two
different things. At no point did | 2:34:02 | 2:34:07 | |
she say there were particular
members of staff who were aware of | 2:34:07 | 2:34:13 | |
particular instances of sexual
exploitation. What she has said is | 2:34:13 | 2:34:17 | |
that the department did not respond
as quickly as she wanted to push the | 2:34:17 | 2:34:27 | |
issue up the international agenda. I
know that in the end of the | 2:34:27 | 2:34:30 | |
department did do that. Her concern
was it took too much pushing to get | 2:34:30 | 2:34:33 | |
to that point. She has not said that
individual incidents of sexual | 2:34:33 | 2:34:38 | |
exploitation and abuse were known
about by Dfid. | 2:34:38 | 2:34:46 | |
Obviously we are taking evidence in
terms of the safeguarding our lack | 2:34:46 | 2:34:49 | |
of safeguarding by non-governmental
organisations. Can one of you | 2:34:49 | 2:34:54 | |
outline what safeguarding procedures
are adopted for Dfid staff here and | 2:34:54 | 2:34:59 | |
in the field?
Let me make a start. First of all, | 2:34:59 | 2:35:06 | |
the general point is to make years
we hold ourselves at least two as | 2:35:06 | 2:35:12 | |
high a standard as our partners, and
we are explicit in doing so. We have | 2:35:12 | 2:35:15 | |
made sure that all staff are aware
of the whistle-blowing procedures | 2:35:15 | 2:35:20 | |
and so on. We need to distinguish
between UK-based members of Dfid | 2:35:20 | 2:35:25 | |
staff and staff employed locally in
individual countries around the | 2:35:25 | 2:35:30 | |
world. The former are civil
servants. They are recruited the | 2:35:30 | 2:35:36 | |
same way that other civil servants
are recruited, with the same sort of | 2:35:36 | 2:35:38 | |
abetting. -- vetting. Local staff
are recruited in an individual | 2:35:38 | 2:35:47 | |
country and are recruited according
to procedures and the law. There is | 2:35:47 | 2:35:52 | |
always some formal background check.
The precise measure of that object | 2:35:52 | 2:35:56 | |
does vary from country to country.
And contract is? The evidence from | 2:35:56 | 2:36:02 | |
Oxfam earlier gave some evidence of
someone who had left who had been | 2:36:02 | 2:36:08 | |
employed by a contract. What sort of
due diligence would there be with a | 2:36:08 | 2:36:13 | |
Dfid contractor? We have just
started a new contract with | 2:36:13 | 2:36:18 | |
Palladium. In response, Palladium
are very aware of this and have | 2:36:18 | 2:36:24 | |
procedures in place at the moment.
They do due diligence on their | 2:36:24 | 2:36:29 | |
staff. The issue is it is as far as
you can go giving the nationality of | 2:36:29 | 2:36:35 | |
the person you are looking at. They
do have that in place. They are now | 2:36:35 | 2:36:40 | |
reviewing and looking again at all
of their processes and plan to act | 2:36:40 | 2:36:44 | |
soon with an idea of what further
steps we can take. They do have | 2:36:44 | 2:36:48 | |
measures in place, quite strong
measures. They are your contract | 2:36:48 | 2:36:52 | |
with regard to humanitarian? Those
contract may come into contact with | 2:36:52 | 2:37:00 | |
vulnerable people, including
children. Is there a similar process | 2:37:00 | 2:37:05 | |
for other contractors? We have just
had a very big process of looking | 2:37:05 | 2:37:08 | |
how we work with our contractors. We
have a new supply review. Part of | 2:37:08 | 2:37:18 | |
that has a code of conduct Ferraro
-- how are suppliers act. | 2:37:18 | 2:37:30 | |
The number of times you have said
depending on national circumstances | 2:37:30 | 2:37:33 | |
of the nationality of the people.
I'm struggling to quite understand | 2:37:33 | 2:37:37 | |
that. Here in Parliament I employ an
Australian national. He had to come | 2:37:37 | 2:37:43 | |
with a certificate from the
Australian police and provided to me | 2:37:43 | 2:37:47 | |
and the Parliamentary authorities.
They then still did a check with the | 2:37:47 | 2:37:52 | |
British security services. They
checked back in Australia. That | 2:37:52 | 2:37:56 | |
seemed to be no problem. I don't
understand why... May be | 2:37:56 | 2:38:03 | |
misinterpreting what you are saying,
but we are not having a standard | 2:38:03 | 2:38:06 | |
system that we are opposing --
imposing, maybe even imposing VAT on | 2:38:06 | 2:38:17 | |
any NGO we have a refund. All I
meant was that when we employ | 2:38:17 | 2:38:23 | |
someone in country X, in addition to
what we're doing globally, we need | 2:38:23 | 2:38:26 | |
to make sure we are implying that
person within the law of the | 2:38:26 | 2:38:30 | |
country. Ice it is an addition
rather taking away? Certainly there | 2:38:30 | 2:38:35 | |
is no taking way. If possible, could
someone from the committee, long on | 2:38:35 | 2:38:43 | |
the 5th of March when everybody is
getting together at a summit to join | 2:38:43 | 2:38:49 | |
this up? It strikes me this is a
longer term issue, it is quite | 2:38:49 | 2:38:52 | |
complex. We would be keen to hear
what you are saying and be part of | 2:38:52 | 2:38:59 | |
that enquiry.
We would welcome that. The 5th of | 2:38:59 | 2:39:04 | |
March is an important point. You are
hearing about some of the proposals | 2:39:04 | 2:39:08 | |
from Save the Children. We have been
gathering over the last while other | 2:39:08 | 2:39:12 | |
policy proposals we want to test.
That is only a start. We will be | 2:39:12 | 2:39:17 | |
working with a broader range of
organisations after the 5th of March | 2:39:17 | 2:39:21 | |
to further test of those ideas, to
potentially see whether we could | 2:39:21 | 2:39:27 | |
test them in reality through some of
our departments and look towards a | 2:39:27 | 2:39:31 | |
larger conference possibly later in
the year where we can bring a larger | 2:39:31 | 2:39:34 | |
group of people together.
I just want to develop something. | 2:39:34 | 2:39:44 | |
The UN seems to me is not fit for
purpose because it is not stopping | 2:39:44 | 2:39:49 | |
what is going on. We should be
leaving that as well. What plans do | 2:39:49 | 2:39:52 | |
you have following this summit for
working with the UN, to get all of | 2:39:52 | 2:39:58 | |
those organisations together, to
make sure that they actually put in | 2:39:58 | 2:40:03 | |
proper safeguarding procedures and
proper training, and not just leave | 2:40:03 | 2:40:06 | |
it to the UK? I have heard about
this ever since I have been involved | 2:40:06 | 2:40:12 | |
with this. Since I came into
Parliament. That was 2010. It hasn't | 2:40:12 | 2:40:16 | |
gone away. It is not going away.
What are you doing to lead the world | 2:40:16 | 2:40:24 | |
by holding the UN to account? The
Secretary of State for International | 2:40:24 | 2:40:29 | |
Development has made it clear we are
not going to wait for the UN anybody | 2:40:29 | 2:40:32 | |
else. We were lead from the front.
We are reaching out to others to | 2:40:32 | 2:40:37 | |
encourage them to join us in that
fight because we know that the more | 2:40:37 | 2:40:42 | |
numerous we can be, the more
effective we can be. But we're not | 2:40:42 | 2:40:46 | |
waiting for anybody to catch up. In
addition to the point about | 2:40:46 | 2:40:50 | |
peacekeeping, we also have in place,
thanks to the previous Secretary of | 2:40:50 | 2:40:54 | |
State and subsequent work, a series
of performance agreements with the | 2:40:54 | 2:40:58 | |
different part of the United
Nations, which permit us to withhold | 2:40:58 | 2:41:03 | |
funding from any parts of the United
Nations that do not match our | 2:41:03 | 2:41:07 | |
requirements, either in terms of
their reform or of the results, and | 2:41:07 | 2:41:13 | |
results can mean either the
development results or if you like | 2:41:13 | 2:41:18 | |
the internal processes in relation
to sexual exploitation or abuse or | 2:41:18 | 2:41:24 | |
other priorities. We have already
announced, and we discussed this, we | 2:41:24 | 2:41:28 | |
have already made it absolutely
clear that those parts of | 2:41:28 | 2:41:35 | |
international organisations who wish
to continue to receive UK government | 2:41:35 | 2:41:38 | |
funding need to make sure that they
not only have zero tolerance for | 2:41:38 | 2:41:43 | |
sexual exportation abuse, but they
can prove it. That would include the | 2:41:43 | 2:41:47 | |
World Bank? We have different
performance agreements with the | 2:41:47 | 2:41:52 | |
World Bank. I would have to check if
the precise wording is the same. | 2:41:52 | 2:41:57 | |
Thank you.
Can I return to the issue we | 2:41:57 | 2:42:03 | |
discussed with Save the Children,
these reports published in 2002 | 2:42:03 | 2:42:10 | |
between the UNHCR and Save the
Children, and the second in 2008. | 2:42:10 | 2:42:16 | |
What, if anything, did Dfid do about
those reports at the time? | 2:42:16 | 2:42:23 | |
I think firstly, and Mr Watkins said
earlier, I think we would | 2:42:23 | 2:42:28 | |
acknowledge that systemwide there
was a collective failure to respond | 2:42:28 | 2:42:31 | |
that scale to those messages,
including from 2007. We are all | 2:42:31 | 2:42:38 | |
taking responsibility to improve in
this area. There is no doubt about | 2:42:38 | 2:42:40 | |
that. When the committee look at
some of the measures we have put in | 2:42:40 | 2:42:46 | |
place within Dfid, you will see a
further strengthening. From early on | 2:42:46 | 2:42:50 | |
we now have in our accountable...
People have the facility to tell us | 2:42:50 | 2:43:00 | |
immediately when they have concerns.
That is really important. We are | 2:43:00 | 2:43:03 | |
doing broader work. The Secretary of
State was in Stockholm last week as | 2:43:03 | 2:43:09 | |
a founder member of the global
partnership for violence against | 2:43:09 | 2:43:13 | |
children. What you are seeing is a
broadening movement that has found | 2:43:13 | 2:43:18 | |
purchase. The global partnership was
only established two years ago. The | 2:43:18 | 2:43:22 | |
wake-up call that we had been
hearing earlier on is resonating | 2:43:22 | 2:43:25 | |
more broadly.
Why do you detect -- think it talks | 2:43:25 | 2:43:32 | |
the times journalist to give us this
wake-up call? The department has | 2:43:32 | 2:43:38 | |
known about the Oxfam allegations
for some time. Why has it taken a | 2:43:38 | 2:43:43 | |
newspaper for this to give it the
wake-up call you have described? | 2:43:43 | 2:43:49 | |
First of all, I would like to pay
tribute to the journalism that has | 2:43:49 | 2:43:53 | |
led to this wake-up call. There is a
much-needed wake-up call. I wouldn't | 2:43:53 | 2:44:00 | |
speculate on the psychology involved
over the intervening years. I think | 2:44:00 | 2:44:03 | |
it is fair to say that this whole
issue of safeguarding has, for a | 2:44:03 | 2:44:09 | |
long, been a priority for Dfid and
for the sector. But it has been a | 2:44:09 | 2:44:14 | |
priority amongst others. What we are
now doing is honing in on it, giving | 2:44:14 | 2:44:21 | |
of laser focus and making sure that
we pull in ideas from wherever we | 2:44:21 | 2:44:26 | |
can in order to root out this evil. | 2:44:26 | 2:44:37 | |
And the it is a huge collective
failure on all our cards. -- it is a | 2:44:37 | 2:44:46 | |
huge collective failure on all our
parts. | 2:44:46 | 2:44:57 | |
The Secretary of State put Oxfam on
a pretty tight deadline saying that | 2:44:58 | 2:45:01 | |
by the end of last week, they should
show precisely how they would handle | 2:45:01 | 2:45:07 | |
any future allegations around
safeguarding. Have they done that? | 2:45:07 | 2:45:13 | |
Yes, they have. Oxfam wrote to the
Secretary of State late last | 2:45:13 | 2:45:17 | |
Thursday night. The Secretary of
State sent to feed a man's. -- sent | 2:45:17 | 2:45:24 | |
three demands. The first was
handling allegations, the second was | 2:45:24 | 2:45:29 | |
that they would cooperate completely
and fully with the Haiti authorities | 2:45:29 | 2:45:34 | |
and the third was that they ritual
leadership across this case. For the | 2:45:34 | 2:45:38 | |
Haitian authorities, I met the
ambassador yesterday to discuss this | 2:45:38 | 2:45:45 | |
case and make sure that corporation
was indeed happening and we have | 2:45:45 | 2:45:48 | |
also been talking to Foreign Office
colleagues and the ambassador has | 2:45:48 | 2:45:53 | |
been to see the ambassador in Haiti
to make sure Oxfam are doing the | 2:45:53 | 2:45:59 | |
right thing. Oxfam also confirmed
they reported these individuals to | 2:45:59 | 2:46:07 | |
the national authorities. On making
clear how they would handle | 2:46:07 | 2:46:10 | |
forthcoming allegations, Mr Golding
mentioned earlier, they handed over | 2:46:10 | 2:46:14 | |
their current caseload of life
cases. They told us they are now | 2:46:14 | 2:46:19 | |
employing an independent firm to
come and oversee and to run the | 2:46:19 | 2:46:23 | |
whistle-blowing and we will be
looking closely at their performance | 2:46:23 | 2:46:26 | |
over the next period of time. We
welcome the opening of the Charity | 2:46:26 | 2:46:31 | |
Commission inquiry which was shed
further evidence on the handling of | 2:46:31 | 2:46:33 | |
the incidents in Haiti in 2011, the
governance of Oxfam going forward | 2:46:33 | 2:46:39 | |
and hope we despond. -- how we
respond. I take it you're satisfied | 2:46:39 | 2:46:49 | |
that Oxfam has, in terms of what
they have been asked to do, have | 2:46:49 | 2:46:54 | |
responded sufficiently. There are
two sets of requirements, the Oxfam | 2:46:54 | 2:46:59 | |
specific requirements which had a
deadline of last week, then there | 2:46:59 | 2:47:04 | |
are the sector wide requirements.
They are one of the UK-based | 2:47:04 | 2:47:09 | |
charities that has deceived a letter
from the Secretary of State asking | 2:47:09 | 2:47:13 | |
them to set out in detail to give us
assurance that they have processes | 2:47:13 | 2:47:16 | |
in place on safeguarding. Clearly
they have themselves, following | 2:47:16 | 2:47:25 | |
discussions with the Secretary of
State, withdrawn from bidding for | 2:47:25 | 2:47:29 | |
any new UK Government funding until
they are satisfied they can meet the | 2:47:29 | 2:47:35 | |
high standards we expect of our
partners and of course the Secretary | 2:47:35 | 2:47:39 | |
of State for International
Development will be looking very | 2:47:39 | 2:47:40 | |
seriously in order to make that
judgment of the sort of moral | 2:47:40 | 2:47:44 | |
leadership they are able to show.
That is a judgment which she will be | 2:47:44 | 2:47:50 | |
making in the future. The Secretary
of State, as you say, said that she | 2:47:50 | 2:47:57 | |
is prepared to review funding if any
agency falls below the standards | 2:47:57 | 2:48:05 | |
that are required. There are others
who have suggested that actually, | 2:48:05 | 2:48:14 | |
funding from Oxfam should be
withdrawn. If it was going to be | 2:48:14 | 2:48:19 | |
withdrawn, what do you think the
impact of that would be on | 2:48:19 | 2:48:25 | |
beneficiaries around the world? That
is the sort of judgment which we | 2:48:25 | 2:48:27 | |
will be making in the future in
relation to future funding | 2:48:27 | 2:48:33 | |
decisions. We need to wait to get
that evidence to make that judgment. | 2:48:33 | 2:48:39 | |
It's going to be a complex judgment
to make and it will be based on | 2:48:39 | 2:48:45 | |
actions in the future as well as an
assessment of the recent past. I | 2:48:45 | 2:48:52 | |
understand the issues that would be
brought in making a judgment about | 2:48:52 | 2:48:56 | |
whether or not that was the right
thing to do, but presumably already, | 2:48:56 | 2:49:03 | |
the department has got some
assessment of what would happen | 2:49:03 | 2:49:10 | |
around the world of funding to Oxfam
was withdrawn. We do, that is part | 2:49:10 | 2:49:17 | |
of the assessment we will be making
in the future. You don't have any | 2:49:17 | 2:49:22 | |
thoughts on that? It's a very
complex question to answer and it is | 2:49:22 | 2:49:28 | |
going to be specific to individual
countries in some parts of the world | 2:49:28 | 2:49:33 | |
there will be a variety of partners
that DFID could choose to work with | 2:49:33 | 2:49:38 | |
and in others it will be harder to
find an alternative to an existing | 2:49:38 | 2:49:43 | |
partner so it is difficult to give a
global answer to that hypothetical | 2:49:43 | 2:49:48 | |
question at the moment. I should
declare an interest because I went | 2:49:48 | 2:49:54 | |
with Oxfam in 2015 and sort the work
they do in the refugee camp with | 2:49:54 | 2:50:01 | |
Syrian refugees. Were there to be a
decision to withdraw funding, | 2:50:01 | 2:50:04 | |
presumably you would only do that
when another partner was put in | 2:50:04 | 2:50:07 | |
place so that the water and
sanitation currently provided by | 2:50:07 | 2:50:10 | |
Oxfam is still provided. Oxfam and a
big part of water and sanitation, we | 2:50:10 | 2:50:18 | |
would need to take it into account.
We would need to do that contingency | 2:50:18 | 2:50:24 | |
planning. Wouldn't be fair to say
that they would be a major haul | 2:50:24 | 2:50:37 | |
potentially in a lot of really
important development efforts around | 2:50:37 | 2:50:41 | |
the world, particularly water and
sanitation? We would do our best to | 2:50:41 | 2:50:49 | |
make sure there were other partners
we could operate through. It is | 2:50:49 | 2:50:53 | |
something we're looking at number of
ways. There are also new projects | 2:50:53 | 2:50:58 | |
which would be fine because we were
just take bids from different | 2:50:58 | 2:51:02 | |
partners so on existing partners, we
would like to mitigate impact on | 2:51:02 | 2:51:05 | |
beneficiaries. Am I right in
thinking you are now the head of the | 2:51:05 | 2:51:17 | |
safeguarding unit that the Secretary
of State promised to be established? | 2:51:17 | 2:51:21 | |
If that is the case can I just ask,
why do you think it took so long for | 2:51:21 | 2:51:28 | |
such a unit to be set up, seeing
that a number of colleagues and the | 2:51:28 | 2:51:33 | |
committee as a whole has been
raising these issues for quite some | 2:51:33 | 2:51:37 | |
time? It is not that DFID hasn't got
about safeguarding over the past | 2:51:37 | 2:51:46 | |
period of time. As you take forward
the broader inquiry, you will see | 2:51:46 | 2:51:54 | |
this. For example, in December 2017,
we issued as smart data | 2:51:54 | 2:51:58 | |
safeguarding, the product of a lot
of work and how best to do | 2:51:58 | 2:52:03 | |
safeguarding. We have safeguarding
written into some of our procedures | 2:52:03 | 2:52:07 | |
and policies will be looked the
capability of organisations to have | 2:52:07 | 2:52:12 | |
safeguarding policies but also
operate them so until this point, | 2:52:12 | 2:52:14 | |
safeguarding was the responsibility
across the organisation. What we | 2:52:14 | 2:52:19 | |
have decided to do in response to
this crisis is draw that together to | 2:52:19 | 2:52:23 | |
categorise further action. The
responsibility of the safeguarding | 2:52:23 | 2:52:27 | |
unit is not to replace safeguarding.
It is to set and to raise standards | 2:52:27 | 2:52:36 | |
and safeguarding right across the
international sector including DFID | 2:52:36 | 2:52:40 | |
and to make sure we are responding
to that responsibility we have | 2:52:40 | 2:52:45 | |
discussed early on, the work that
out in -- our internal audits does | 2:52:45 | 2:52:52 | |
and I will advance team does, this
is about consolidating and rising to | 2:52:52 | 2:52:57 | |
the challenge that we know we all
face. We all know that mainstreaming | 2:52:57 | 2:53:05 | |
is a code for not doing it if you
don't have some leading in the | 2:53:05 | 2:53:09 | |
centre, to having someone in the
centre and mainstreaming the work | 2:53:09 | 2:53:14 | |
very good, but just so I'm clear,
who will you report to? Directly to | 2:53:14 | 2:53:22 | |
the Secretary of State? Just in
terms of what level it sat. You will | 2:53:22 | 2:53:26 | |
understand the Secretary of State
announced the creation of this unit | 2:53:26 | 2:53:30 | |
and we have been working that
currently. We will review those | 2:53:30 | 2:53:40 | |
arrangements as we consolidate and
consider the further functions of | 2:53:40 | 2:53:44 | |
the safeguarding unit within DFID.
She did say it was reporting | 2:53:44 | 2:53:51 | |
directly to her and Jimmy so there
is that joule chain -- dual. We put | 2:53:51 | 2:54:03 | |
together in one unit, 16 people to
provide that central impetus but I | 2:54:03 | 2:54:09 | |
wouldn't want anyone to have the
impression that there was no focus | 2:54:09 | 2:54:17 | |
on safeguarding before that grip,
but this is a new phase. So you | 2:54:17 | 2:54:25 | |
report to three? He directly to the
Secretary of State and have | 2:54:25 | 2:54:34 | |
conversations directly and has done
so most days, so that's a bit of | 2:54:34 | 2:54:37 | |
civil service issue. On any issues
like this, he has a direct line if | 2:54:37 | 2:54:46 | |
necessary to the Secretary of State.
From the conversations we have had | 2:54:46 | 2:54:50 | |
with Save the Children, they were
talking about some of the | 2:54:50 | 2:54:53 | |
discussions we have had with
Interpol struggling to get political | 2:54:53 | 2:54:58 | |
capital. Has the department had any
discussions with Interpol about | 2:54:58 | 2:55:03 | |
trying to oil those wheels? If so,
what were the discussions and if | 2:55:03 | 2:55:13 | |
not, is very commitment to go to
Interpol and even offers a cost of | 2:55:13 | 2:55:16 | |
what this needs to be to make sure
those wheels or oiled? Yes, we will | 2:55:16 | 2:55:23 | |
work with them in the run-up to the
summit on the 5th of March and | 2:55:23 | 2:55:28 | |
beyond and we will be looking
imaginatively at whatever ideas come | 2:55:28 | 2:55:33 | |
out of that. As for the first
question, I don't know. I don't | 2:55:33 | 2:55:43 | |
believe we have. The Secretary of
State met the national crime agency | 2:55:43 | 2:55:48 | |
recently and that is all part of the
process and an important | 2:55:48 | 2:55:52 | |
functionality. In terms of this idea
of regulated profession whatever the | 2:55:52 | 2:56:02 | |
term is, so that aid agencies can
automatically... Is that a | 2:56:02 | 2:56:10 | |
discussion that is happening with
the relevant department that we need | 2:56:10 | 2:56:12 | |
to bring that statutory instrument
in and have there been any | 2:56:12 | 2:56:17 | |
consideration in the Department of
just unilaterally establishing a | 2:56:17 | 2:56:20 | |
register? Not just British aid
workers, but of all aid workers that | 2:56:20 | 2:56:28 | |
get in touch of British money or
NGOs or anything and extending our | 2:56:28 | 2:56:32 | |
jurisdiction to the Globe until
another agency comes forward and | 2:56:32 | 2:56:40 | |
takes that please? Has there been
consideration about whether that | 2:56:40 | 2:56:44 | |
would be feasible? As I said in
answer to the question earlier, yes. | 2:56:44 | 2:56:50 | |
Nothing is any longer to difficult.
-- too difficult. This issue was | 2:56:50 | 2:57:01 | |
deemed to be difficult when she
first raised it, difficult to | 2:57:01 | 2:57:05 | |
implement and with some concerns
about lack of accountability and so | 2:57:05 | 2:57:08 | |
on. I think now on the changed
circumstances, we are looking at it | 2:57:08 | 2:57:13 | |
and seeing whether the time is now
right and we will be using the | 2:57:13 | 2:57:18 | |
summit on the 5th of March to see if
the time is right to launch it. | 2:57:18 | 2:57:24 | |
It'll be useful to share that with
the committee so that we can see the | 2:57:24 | 2:57:27 | |
thought process, even if it doesn't
go ahead, because that be useful for | 2:57:27 | 2:57:31 | |
us. Can I criticise you for
something you said. You said if the | 2:57:31 | 2:57:36 | |
time is right. The time is right. It
is not a case of if, we have to do | 2:57:36 | 2:57:43 | |
it, we cannot let this happen again.
I am saying yes to that. The time is | 2:57:43 | 2:57:53 | |
long overdue, it needs to be done
now. Save the Children recently | 2:57:53 | 2:58:01 | |
wrote to you in terms of giving the
number of proposals on safeguarding. | 2:58:01 | 2:58:08 | |
Will you be implementing these
proposals or do you have any | 2:58:08 | 2:58:12 | |
timescale on them? Out of the first
part of the answer then hand over to | 2:58:12 | 2:58:19 | |
my colleague. As with previous
suggestions in this area, we want to | 2:58:19 | 2:58:23 | |
use the summit on the 5th of March
as an opportunity to gather all of | 2:58:23 | 2:58:26 | |
us together to hear from those with
most front-line experience on these | 2:58:26 | 2:58:31 | |
issues including Save the Children,
including Oxfam, including others in | 2:58:31 | 2:58:34 | |
the sector and there might be other
ideas out there as well so we added | 2:58:34 | 2:58:38 | |
the state pulling those ideas and
seeing which ones are most likely to | 2:58:38 | 2:58:44 | |
really resolve this issue -- pooling
this idea. Unless colleagues have | 2:58:44 | 2:58:55 | |
other questions, we need to finish
with a closing question. This has | 2:58:55 | 2:58:59 | |
been a massive news story of the
last ten days, raising massively | 2:58:59 | 2:59:03 | |
serious concerns and as we have dug
further into it, we see these issues | 2:59:03 | 2:59:07 | |
that have been known about in one
form or another a very long period | 2:59:07 | 2:59:11 | |
of time. Do you recognise the damage
that this has done to the reputation | 2:59:11 | 2:59:16 | |
of the aid sector and what is DFID's
strategy to address that? | 2:59:16 | 2:59:26 | |
Yes this is a huge crisis for the
aid sector, I welcome the enquiry | 2:59:26 | 2:59:32 | |
announced today, as a contribution
to turning this crisis around and | 2:59:32 | 2:59:38 | |
learning from it, rooting out the
evil which exists within the sector | 2:59:38 | 2:59:40 | |
and through those improvements to
grab an opportunity and to create | 2:59:40 | 2:59:48 | |
something better as a legacy of this
crisis and the awful things which | 2:59:48 | 2:59:53 | |
have happened to people in Haiti and
elsewhere. The reputation of the | 2:59:53 | 3:00:00 | |
sector, the reputation of aid, the
reputation of the 0.7% commitment | 3:00:00 | 3:00:03 | |
have been pulled into the mix but as
the previous witness was saying, | 3:00:03 | 3:00:11 | |
it's very important to consider why
the British government, why all the | 3:00:11 | 3:00:15 | |
main parties have committed to spend
0.7% of our economy each year on | 3:00:15 | 3:00:21 | |
international aid and to do a better
job than we have done in the past | 3:00:21 | 3:00:27 | |
between us of explaining to the
British people why that's a good | 3:00:27 | 3:00:30 | |
thing to do for our own country, for
our own prosperity and security and | 3:00:30 | 3:00:35 | |
our own influence around the world.
All those things are threatened by | 3:00:35 | 3:00:39 | |
this crisis but we are determined to
act with you and the charities and | 3:00:39 | 3:00:43 | |
the private sector to turn that
around. Thank you for that. Let me | 3:00:43 | 3:00:48 | |
conclude this hearing by repeating
what we said earlier this morning as | 3:00:48 | 3:00:54 | |
a committee, we will be holding a
formal enquiry into the issues we | 3:00:54 | 3:01:00 | |
have addressed this morning and
which will be looking for that | 3:01:00 | 3:01:03 | |
culpability for the past but also
importantly on how we can improve in | 3:01:03 | 3:01:07 | |
the future and we will consider
further witnesses in due course. | 3:01:07 | 3:01:12 | |
Thank you. | 3:01:12 | 3:01:14 |