The chair of the government’s equality watchdog, who was appointed by Liz Truss and investigated after a series of complaints by staff members, has been given a 12-month extension in the role, ministers have announced.
The decision to reappoint Kishwer Falkner as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), first revealed by the Guardian, has left some staff members angry after they had hoped a Labour government might change the organisation’s leadership.
However, the announcement by the government’s Office for Equality and Opportunity said it was looking for a new chair, with a successor expected to be announced next year. It is understood that the extension was given largely because of the lack of time to find a replacement before her four-year term finishes at the end of this year.
News that Lady Falkner would stay on in the role had dismayed some staff at the EHRC following a sometimes turbulent period in which she grappled with internal debates over transgender policy and was investigated over a series of complaints from current and past staff.
Falkner, 69, a cross-bench peer who was given the job in 2020, when Truss was the minister for equalities, has denied any wrongdoing, with allies saying she has been unfairly targeted by some staff owing to her approach to trans rights.
However, others in the EHRC say the complaints against her, understood to have come from about 12 staff members or former staff, were also connected to worries about a lack of independence and impartiality within the organisation, as well as claims about bullying and harassment.
In May last year, it emerged that the EHRC had appointed a senior lawyer to look into the allegations, with the process then paused after leaks to the media from both sides of the debate.
The inquiry was then restarted, but dropped a year ago after the then equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, ordered a review of the process. The EHRC said it was closing the process, with the organisation seeking to “work through any outstanding issues with all parties in confidence”.
Some staff members say the organisation remains split, with allies of the chair portraying the complaints as a “witch-hunt” against her by pro-transgender rights staff members after the EHRC backed changing the Equality Act 2010 so the protected characteristic of sex would mean biological sex, which would allow transgender women to be barred from single-sex spaces.
Others in the organisation say that while some concerns and complaints were about transgender policy, the wider worries were about a lack of independence and impartiality by the EHRC, plus an internal culture they called “toxic”.
David Isaac, who chaired the EHRC before Falkner was appointed, has previously expressed concern at what he called political pressure on the organisation to support a changed approach to equalities issues under the Conservatives.
Announcing the extended term, Bridget Phillipson, who is the equalities minister as well as being education secretary, said: “The government thanks Baroness Falkner for her work chairing the EHRC, during which the commission supported businesses, intervened in strategic cases of discrimination to support victims and contributed to government policy on improving equalities. I look forward to her continuing this work throughout the next 12 months.”
