Labour and civil service unions have called on the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, to launch an urgent investigation after 60 senior female staff at the Ministry of Defence reported a widespread culture of sexual assault, harassment and abuse by male colleagues.
The opposition party called on Shapps to take action to “root out this behaviour from top to bottom”, while the heads of the FDA and PCS trade unions called for a meeting with the department’s permanent secretary, David Williams.
Insiders said the response so far to the complaint, which featured many individual accounts of harassment and sexism, was inadequate – but senior defence sources indicated a package of changes would be announced in due course.
First revealed by the Guardian, the complaint, a letter compiled by the senior civil servants, included claims that women had been “propositioned”, “groped” and “touched repeatedly” by male colleagues at the MoD in a workplace culture the civil servants said was “hostile to women as equal and respected partners”.
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, said the allegations shamed the MoD. “Any intimidation or harassment can be reported with the confidence that action will be taken, and this must be led from the top by ministers,” he added.
Gareth Hills, a national officer with the FDA, which represents senior civil servants, said the accounts of the women’s experiences were “deeply worrying”. “The FDA, along with other unions representing staff at the MoD, has requested an urgent meeting with the permanent secretary to discuss this”, he added.
There was no response from Shapps, who has yet to personally comment on the complaints, or news of further action from Williams or the MoD on Friday. Insiders are braced for further criticism until the minister and his top officials release their response, which has been in preparation for some weeks.
The dossier was sent by a group of senior civil servants to Williams at the beginning of October, and its contents have become widespread knowledge among civil servants in the MoD Main Building in Whitehall.
One insider said sexism, harassment and other issues of staff safety raised in the letter were discussed in some internal meetings around a fortnight ago. Afterwards, women with concerns were told they could make complaints through existing grievance procedures and other channels.
“It felt like an inadequate reaction given that some of the women in the letter did speak up and were ignored,” the source said. The insider complained of an MoD culture that was misogynistic and patriarchal, and there were intimidating “men who women discuss amongst themselves as giving off ‘rapey vibes’”.
There was criticism of the junior defence minister Andrew Murrison for failing to mention the existence of the letter when he gave evidence to the Commons defence select committee earlier this week on women in the armed forces.
Sarah Atherton, a Conservative member of the cross-party committee, accused Murrison of having “sat on” the letter, while telling MPs that the MoD was gradually making progress in eradicating harassment and hostile behaviour towards women. “It would seem more challenges than progress,” Atherton wrote on LinkedIn.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Murrison said that “life in the armed forces has got better for women, significantly so, and is improving”. Most of the committee’s time was spent discussing a series of recent harassment scandals, with little reference to the experiences of female civil servants.
The dossier from the 60 senior officials includes individuals complaining that they feared walking through the MoD’s pillared hall atrium in Whitehall because “the groups of men staring is horrible”, and an account of a group of “junior military officers” who kept an Excel spreadsheet of whom they rated most attractive and “what they thought they’d be like in bed”.
Downing Street described the accounts in the dossier as incredibly concerning and called on them to be “looked into thoroughly” by the MoD. The prime minister’s deputy spokesperson said: “It’s also important that people are given assurances that where they have concerns they should be raised formally so they can be investigated thoroughly through the robust processes that we have in place.”
Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, said the union was “shocked and appalled by these reports, but they do echo our members’ experiences”. Calling for an urgent meeting with Williams, he added: “Such appalling behaviour has no place in the civil service or anywhere else and we call for an urgent independent investigation to build long-lasting change.”
Britain’s military has been rocked by a succession of abuse, harassment and sexism scandals in the past year, including in the Red Arrows display team and the navy’s submarine service. Nine rapes in a 13-month period have been reported at the army’s Harrogate training college and a 19-year-old soldier, Jaysley Beck, is believed to have killed herself after protracted sexual harassment from her boss.
