A coroner has raised concerns about the civil service’s handling of disciplinary processes following the suicide of an HM Treasury staff member who wrongly feared she could lose her job.
Surrey Coroner Anna Crawford has said she will issue a “prevention of future deaths” report to the Treasury and cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo after the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Chloe Moffat yesterday.
The process is a legal route for coroners to spotlight lessons that can be learned by government departments, local authorities or other organisations from evidence presented at an inquest.
Moffat took her own life at her parents’ home in May last year, the day after being told she was the subject of a disciplinary process following allegations that she had shared sensitive personal information about colleagues. She denied doing anything wrong.
Moffat, who had worked at HM Treasury since October 2022 and was personal assistant to a director at the department, asked whether she could lose her job as a result of the disciplinary process. She was given an ambiguous answer and not told that, if the allegations were proven, the most likely outcome would be a written warning.
Issuing her verdict yesterday, coroner Anna Crawford said she was satisfied that the “shock and distress of the allegations and thinking she was going to lose her job” had "materially" contributed to Moffat’s state of mind when she took her own life.
Crawford said the informal meeting at which Moffat was told of the disciplinary process had not been held in line with departmental policy, and that Moffat should have been informed of her right to be accompanied and any likely penalty she could face.
Under formal Treasury policy, Moffat should also have been given five days notice of the meeting.
Crawford said that the Treasury’s handling of the allegations against Moffat meant she had been “denied safeguards” that should have protected her.
She added that it was a “matter of concern” that the informal meetings of the kind that that prompted Moffat’s suicide had been described by HM Treasury as “standard practice” in its evidence to the inquest.
“It runs the risk of serious and/or gross misconduct allegations being put to colleagues without safeguards in place,” the coroner said.
Crawford said the case had given her concerns that there may be a “wider issue” of improperly run disciplinary processes across Whitehall.
Following the inquest, an HM Treasury spokesperson said: “We continue to mourn Chloe’s passing as a colleague and friend. Our thoughts remain with her family and friends. We take the coroner’s concerns extremely seriously and recognise it is important to act quickly. We are now considering the findings carefully.
“Following an independent review we have introduced improvements to guidance, support and wellbeing arrangements but recognise we must continue to take action to prevent this happening again.”
Under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, coroners have a legal duty to send a prevention of future deaths report to relevant organisations when an inquest reveals an ongoing risk of future fatalities.
Those organisations are supposed to provide a written response within 56 days.
One of the more high-profile examples of such reports came after inquests into six deaths that resulted from the Lakanal House fire in Camberwell, south London, in 2009.
Following inquests that concluded in 2013, the coroner wrote to the then Department for Communities and Local Government expressing concerns about the safety of the building’s refurbishment and confusion related to building regulations.
Those themes were central issues in the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017, which claimed 72 lives.
Eric Pickles – who was secretary of state at the time DCLG received the Lakanal House prevention of future deaths report – subsequently told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry that departmental officials said the coroner’s concerns were something he “shouldn’t worry” about.
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