Co-op Whistleblower Claims Unfair Dismissal

A former executive of the Co-operative Group claims that the organisation waged a “deliberate campaign” against her in a bid to destroy her reputation after she spoke out over her concerns regarding what she deemed to be malpractice and poor governance of the business.

Kathleen Harmeston was former procurement director of Co-op when she made her claims and is now seeking £5 million in damages for unfair dismissal. At the beginning of her recent Manchester tribunal hearing, Ms Harmeston spoke highly of her competencies in her role at Co-op and how she was “a well known person in the industry for procurement” who had previously been nominated for the 2012 Businesswoman of the Year award.

She spoke about how the alleged malpractice at Co-op involved 70% of the company’s £1.5bn overall spend not being detailed in the officially published procurement policy released by the organisation. She further claimed that co-op is “haemorrhaging money” as a result of the costs it accumulated through management consultant services, which cost between £4m and £8m in 2013 alone.

These revelations allegedly led to Ms Harmeston being put on ‘garden leave’ in June 2014 before being dismissed from the company entirely three months later. Allan Leighton, chairman of co-op, responded to the allegations claiming “We dismissed her because she acted in a manner which was not in keeping with the importance and seniority of her role, nor the values and principles of the Co-op.”

Further arguments against the reliability of Ms Harmeston were presented at the tribunal, with co-op making claims against her reputation, including details of a dispute she had with them regarding the location of her office, as well as claims of how a consultancy firm she used while employed by Royal Mail several years earlier had been investigated for its alleged misconduct against the postal service.

This historic information is intended to bring Ms Harmeston’s reliability into question, although the Co-operative group is likely to have been aware of this when they employed Ms Harmeston as her success at reducing Royal Mail’s spend was key to her employment.

In her witness statement, Ms Harmeston expressed her belief that she “at all times acted with the utmost integrity” with Co-op’s best interests in mind. She also summed up her analysis of Co-op’s treatment of her: “It is difficult for me to escape the conclusion that the respondent embarked upon a deliberate campaign to comprehensively disparage my reputation with staff, suppliers and within the Executive Search community seeking to neutralise the impact of my disclosures and to utterly destroy my hard won reputation and career.”

Whistleblowing is an act protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act in circumstances where there is reasonable belief that an employer dismissed an employee as a result of the decision to speak out about their concerns, thus constituting an act of unfair dismissal.

Ms Harmeston also claims that during her disciplinary procedure Co-op acted in a dishonest manner in which she was given the code name of “Wimbledon” by Co-op staff in order to keep track of her actions and not lead a “paper trail” back to her. The Co-op group rejects all Ms Harmeston’s claims will “fully and robustly defend our decision to dismiss Kath Harmeston”.

The tribunal continues and is expected to last two weeks.