UK Foreign Office sued for sex discrimination

LONDON: The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is being sued for sexual and racial discrimination. According to one of the FCO’s employees, careers of women and ethnic minorities working there are held back by a glass ceiling that is supported by an inherited culture of discrimination.

The allegations were made at an employment tribunal by Manchula Kuganesan, a senior accountant from London who worked for the FCO for almost 11 years.

“I quickly appreciated that the FCO was the most conservative and traditional government department within which I had worked. It does not deal with change well and many of its practices are outmoded,” Kuganesan told the tribunal.

Kuganesan, 49, is suing the FCO for race and sex discrimination and alleged that during her time there she was regularly overlooked for promotion despite being more qualified that her white male colleagues.

“When I started I was conscious that I was the most senior ethnic-minority female employee within my department. I was also conscious that almost all of the senior finance-related posts were held by white men.

I have no role models. By contrast with my own career progression, my white male counterparts have enjoyed dramatic progress,” she said. Kuganesan, of Indian origin, qualified as an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in 1985, and has since worked in both the public and private sectors.

In the government she has worked with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Food, the National Audit Office and the Home Office but she claimed she found the FCO the most ‘conservative’ of departments which still implemented discriminatory practices dating from a time when women who married were forced to resign.

“Aware that there might be barriers for me, I took to the challenge of winning over hearts and minds. I found quite quickly that life was being made difficult for me by the accountants on whose co-operation I relied. There was resistance to the changes I had to introduce and also to the specific steps of management of projects,” she told the tribunal.

“One in particular tried to cause friction between myself and the chief accountant by feeding him misinformation. They did not appear to respond well to a BME (black or ethnic minority) woman in a project manager role, or appreciate that in this capacity, I would have to pull on the reins from time to time,” she added.

The hearing at the central London employment tribunal continues.