Priti Patel has reached a six-figure settlement with a senior civil servant after claims that he was forced out of his job for intervening in her alleged bullying of fellow staff, it has emerged.
Whitehall sources said Sir Philip Rutnam, a former permanent secretary in the Home Office, received a £340,000 settlement with a further £30,000 in costs. He had threatened to take the home secretary to an employment tribunal hearing in September.
He also claimed he had been hounded out of his job for defending his staff, and was suing the government under whistleblowing laws.
The payoff means Patel and Boris Johnson will no longer face the possibility of giving evidence before a public tribunal.
It will, however, lead to demands to explain how much has been spent defending the home secretary.
Johnson’s government also paid a five-figure settlement in November to the former special adviser Sonia Khan, who claimed sex discrimination after being escorted out of Downing Street by police.
Patel has consistently rejected Rutnam’s claims. A government spokesperson said no liability had been accepted and that it had been right to defend the case.
A Cabinet Office report published in November, however, noted claims that she had shouted and sworn at staff and found she had breached the ministerial code, even if unintentionally.
Rutnam’s case is the first time that a secretary of state has been pursued to an employment tribunal by a former permanent secretary, the most senior civil servant in a government department.
Rutnam said in a statement: “I am pleased to say that the government has today settled the claims that I brought against them and which were due to be heard in an employment tribunal in September.
“This settlement resolves my own case. The FDA [union for senior civil servants] is continuing to pursue in separate proceedings the wider issues that have been raised,” he said.
He resigned from his post as permanent secretary of the Home Office on 29 February 2020 and subsequently began legal proceedings against the department.
In a hastily arranged and dramatic press conference in his garden, Rutnam, a career civil servant, told the media that he had become the target of a “vicious and orchestrated campaign against him”, which he accused Patel of orchestrating.
Rutnam’s case was expected to focus on his claims that in late 2019 and early 2020 he challenged Patel’s alleged mistreatment of senior civil servants in the Home Office, and that he was then hounded out of his job through anonymous briefings.
Reports claimed that a senior Home Office official collapsed after a fractious meeting with Patel. She was also accused of successfully asking for another senior official in the department to be moved from their job.
Rutnam, a public servant for 30 years, subsequently wrote to all senior civil servants in the department highlighting the dangers of workplace stress. He also made clear that they could not be expected to do unrealistic work outside office hours.
After a report in the Times highlighted tensions between Rutnam and Patel, sources close to Patel were quoted in several newspapers as saying that Rutnam should resign.
In an article in the Times, allies of the home secretary said he should be stripped of his pension, another source in the Telegraph said he was nicknamed Dr No for negative ideas, while one in the Sun likened him to Eeyore, the pessimistic donkey from Winnie the Pooh.
At that time the prime minister’s official spokesman said Johnson had full confidence in the home secretary and in the civil service, though the same guarantee was not given to Rutnam specifically.
It then emerged that Patel had also been accused of bullying in two other government departments – the Department for International Development and the Department for Work and Pensions.
An aide in the DWP received a £25,000 government payout after a threatened lawsuit in which Patel was named.
Under pressure from claims, Johnson ordered a Cabinet Office inquiry last year, which was conducted by Sir Alex Allan. He wrote a report sent to the prime minister that said Patel’s behaviour amounted to bullying and was therefore a breach of the ministerial code.
As the sole arbiter of the rules, the prime minister stood by Patel, concluding in his view that she had not broken the ministerial code.
The FDA union has launched a judicial review, arguing that Johnson’s decision to disregard Allan’s findings could allow ministers to get away with unacceptable behaviour in future.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said on Thursday: “Taxpayers will be appalled at having to pick up the bill for the home secretary’s unacceptable behaviour.”
Responding to Rutnam’s statement, a Home Office spokesperson said: “The government and Sir Philip’s representatives have jointly concluded that it is in both parties’ best interests to reach a settlement at this stage rather than continuing to prepare for an employment tribunal.
“The government does not accept liability in this matter and it was right that the government defended the case.”
