Comments on: There’s no faith left in Trevor Phillips any more

By: bananabrain

bananabrain — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:59:43 +0000

yahya’s got a point – a quango created out of other quangos is unlikely to have been constructed along strategically sound lines, when political expediency was likely to have been at the bottom of it.

of course, that too might not have been the result of trevor phillips’ influence as well, who knows? i certainly don’t. it would be a great job for a management consultant to fix though.

b’shalom

bananabrain

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:01:50 +0000

Good point although it’s not like there wasn’t criticism of the single equalities agenda which led to the consolidation of equality strands into the EHRC…

By: Yahya Birt

Yahya Birt — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:02:02 +0000

The problem with the CEHR may also be structural, so rather than all the strands working harmoniously under the rubric of equality and human rights, they may instead be relatively unused to working together (having come recently out of their own silos) with their various champions coming to grief over how to split up the budget and to decide which battles the CEHR should champion the most in the public debate. A sort of zero-sum game between incomensurate (in a philosophical sense) equalities, in race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. The CEHR might have seemd like a reasonable-enough bureaucratic rationalization at the time, but in practice maybe it’s not working out so well.

This is not to ignore the fact that there may be internal problems with spending controls, or that the commissioners don’t like Sir Trevor’s management style, but maybe some of this isn’t just down to who is in charge.

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:13:01 +0000

Well if there is such a thing as the race relations “industry” then Phillips’s company (of which he is still an owner though no longer a director) seems to fit the bill.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3092713/Equality-chief-Trevor-Phillips-to-quit-directorship-after-conflict-of-interest-storm.html

By: damon

damon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:18:48 +0000

What’s the problem with him again? That he’s a bad manager? Maybe he is, but I don’t really care enough about the inner workings of the EHRC to find out.

The only thing I ever hear about that body is when something thay said is in the newspapers or being discussed on some Radio 5 Nicky Campbell type programme.

I find him quite an interesting person, but I’d prefer him to be more high profile. You have to go looking on the internet to see all the stuff you might have missed about him, like the piece by Sunny Katwala did about him in CiF.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/28/goingbackwards

And Phillips’ article in Prospect magazine that Katwala talks about, I found very interesting.
Trevor Phillips is alright, (isn’t he?)

By: married affairs

married affairs — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:28:22 +0000

Pickled Politics » There’s no faith left in Trevor Phillips any more: She was understood to be unhappy at Ph.. http://bit.ly/ebHb4

By: zaffer

zaffer — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:50:28 +0000

That’s true Leon but to me blogs and organisations like pp should be challenging the mainstream and actually looking deeper into the real causes and not pandering to the staus quo.

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:41:44 +0000

True say Zaffer but that’s how political smears work isn’t it? People conveniently forget the actual situation in favour of a perception that suits their agenda…

By: zaffer

zaffer — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:37:11 +0000

I think people get a bit confused with the role of Trevor Phillips- he is the Chair of the organisation. The stuff that is coming out is due to bad management of the EHRC. People who have worked in medium to large organisations would know this.

By: Anon

Anon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:05:53 +0000

Just shows how right Ken Livingstone was to commit resources to campaigning against Phillips being appointed chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, doesn’t it? Will Andrew Gilligan now be writing an article denouncing the misuse of public money at the EHRC?

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:31:03 +0000

Bit late now for this isn’t it Sunny? He’s already been re-appointed for another three years and I really can’t see him going anywhere. People can resign all they like but all that will do is give him the opportunity to bring in some new talent!

A more pertinent question though would be, who exactly do you think should be running the EHRC and what should their vision be?

By: Dan Dare

Dan Dare — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:51:56 +0000

As an unreconstructed race hustler Phillips has had little if any empathy for the other groups which have been unceremoniously bundled into his portfolio. It’s an absolute scandal that this charlatan should have been entrusted with the reponsibility for representing some of the the most vulnerable people in our society, when it has been clear all along that he has only ever viewed the Equalities mega-quango as a device to provide supplementary aircover for his primary business interest, that of ethnic rent-seeking.

By: pickles

pickles — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:59:36 +0000

New blog post: There’s no faith left in Trevor Phillips any more http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/5219