Best practice group hit by staff tribunals

Constructing Excellence (CE), the government-funded organisation launched to help push forward the industry’s Respect for People agenda, has been threatened with employment tribunals over the way it has treated its staff.

The organisation is also expected to be scrutinised by the National Audit Office, which has been contacted by disgruntled staff over the way it has spent £9m in government money over the past two years.

Staff also claimed CE has under-invested in its regional centres, withdrawing necessary funding without warning.

The damning claims have been made by several former employees of CE, some of whom are now considering action against the organisation after what they said was a "humiliating, abysmal dismissal".

Many of the contract terminations involved a one-line email late on a Friday night for an immediate contract termination, without a notice period.

CJ understands that one former employee received a "substantial" settlement from CE, after he claimed unfair dismissal.

CE denied all the claims.

An insider said that one staff member whose employment had been terminated had come into the office to find his belongings strewn across the top of a cupboard and that he had been barred from the IT server.

The source added that he believed that Dennis Lenard (CE’s chief executive) had asked for the immediate termination of the employee’s contract while he was out of the office. The employee was then marched out of the building.

The insider told CJ the employee was notified that his termination was due to funding, but it has since been discovered that he has been replaced by a full-time staff member with less experience.

He added that he understood that neither the former employee’s line manager, nor the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), were consulted about the decision.

A CE spokesman said: "Regional managers are consultants employed for a specific purpose; in some instances those contracts have come to an end when work has been completed."

CJ has also learned that CE had apparently failed to secure £300,000 of funding from the London Development Agency for the creation of a centre of excellence, because it failed to provide £60,000 of its own funding.

"The DTI seems oblivious to how CE spends its money, " said the source. "Last year it received around £4.5m from the government towards building a network of centres across the country. The fact is, CE is winding down the financing of regional centres and only spent £400,000 regionally last year. This year it spent only £100,000 of its £3.5m budget. You have to ask, where is the money going?"

CE denied the claims. "CE is, and has always been, fully audited by the DTI and independent auditors," said its spokesman.

A DTI spokesman said: "The DTI provides funds for a set of deliverables within CE’s business plan and has meetings to monitor delivery of relevant milestones."