The Helplines Association has called for tighter regulation of non-profit helplines in the wake of the National Bullying Helpline scandal, including a kitemark scheme to help callers identify organisations that subscribe to high standards.

A poll of the Association’s members and stakeholders suggested that 72 per cent of helpline operators supported tighter regulatory controls.

The National Bullying Helpline, whose founder and director Christine Pratt hit the headlines last month when she announced that staff at 10 Downing Street had contacted the charity about bullying by Gordon Brown, was not a member of the Association.

In a bid to shore up the reputation of charity helplines in the wake of the story, the Association wants adherence to accepted good practice to become a condition of charity registration and of winning grants or contracts.  

It also wants members to use the Association logo as a kind of quality mark to reassure the public that the helplines abide by high standards.

Pratt sued BAE for confidentiality breach

In an ironic twist on the story, it has been reported that Pratt once sued BAE Systems for £450,000 because she claimed the company had breached a confidentiality agreement relating to a previous employment tribunal case she was involved in.

In 1995 Pratt, who had been a senior secretary in BAE’s corporate exhibitions team, had taken BAE to a tribunal alleging constructive dismissal but the aerospace company had settled out of court.  

Part of the settlement deal was that the company would provide positive references about her to prospective new employers, but when Pratt tried to get a new job BAE had allegedly disclosed the circumstances of the tribunal case. So she sued the organisation for a breach of confidentiality.

BAE refused to comment on the case except to confirm she was a former employee.  Pratt answered the phone at her HR consultancy business, HR & Diversity Management Ltd, but refused to comment and referred enquiries to PR expert Max Clifford. Clifford, however, said he was not representing her and knew nothing about the BAE Systems lawsuit.

“Christine came to me last week to ask me to give her some unpaid advice and guidance, which I’ve done,” he told Civil Society.  “My advice was that if you want to change perceptions of the situation you have to provide some evidence to substantiate what you said.”

The helpline, which had been suspended last Wednesday, was operating again by Friday, despite the Charity Commission opening a statutory inquiry into the charity. The Commission said it received 160 complaints about the organisation in the wake of the Gordon Brown bullying row.

Complaints about BBC coverage

Meanwhile, the BBC has had a number of complaints about its coverage of the story; 14 of them complaining that its journalists did not look closely enough at the charity’s links with the Conservative Party before running Pratt’s allegations about bullying at Number 10.

According to the address on the charity’s website, its office is next door to the Swindon Conservative Association in the Dorcan Business Village.

Conflict of interest

Various blogs and news stories have also raised concerns about the relationship of the charity to the HR consultancy owned by Christine Pratt and her husband David.  HR & Diversity Management Ltd registered the website domain of the charity in September 2005 and the charity’s website admits that it sometimes refers callers to the for-profit consultancy, among others.

The charity’s website highlights the relationship under the headline ‘Conflict of interest’, stating: “Since its inauguration this helpline has been funded by HR & Diversity Management Ltd, an HR consultancy established by Christine and David Pratt, who also founded this helpline (charity).  The consultancy does not profit from the helpline – quite the contrary! The consultancy funds the helpline entirely.”

The website of HR & Diversity Management features a comprehensive biography of Christine Pratt as its “founder” but nowhere within it does it state that she also founded and runs the National Bullying Helpline.

The charity has not yet filed its September 2008 accounts with the Charity Commission, making these 215 days overdue, and its 2007 accounts show that just £1,818 was raised by the organisation during the year.

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Kitemark mooted after National Bullying Helpline debacle

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