A five-month investigation into bullying claims about Dominic Raab led to the deputy prime minister and justice secretary quitting on Friday morning. This is what the inquiry by Adam Tolley KC found.
The claims
There were three Whitehall departments, run by Raab since 2018, where complaints were made about his behaviour.
Brexit department
In Raab’s first cabinet job, staff were said to have “suffered significant negative impacts on their psychological wellbeing” after coming into contact with him.
A complaint was submitted officially on 21 November 2021, but Tolley said concerns were raised with the Cabinet Office in March 2019.
There was a lack of detail – such as dates and context – to parts of the complaint, and some claims were based on input from people who did not want to participate in the investigation, Tolley said.
Foreign Office
Two incidents were raised with Tolley. In the first, Raab “exercised his executive judgment” and was claimed to have “acted in a way which was intimidating” by being “unreasonably and persistently aggressive” during a meeting, Tolley said.
Few details were disclosed to avoid breaching the confidentiality of the complainant, but Raab’s resignation letter and comment piece for the Telegraph claimed he replaced a Foreign Office negotiator after the senior diplomat allegedly “breached the mandate agreed by cabinet” during Brexit negotiations over Gibraltar.
Later, according to the Tolley report, Raab allegedly accused officials of not following his instructions, questioned their compliance with the civil service code and was “persistently aggressive”.
Ministry of Justice
The most wide-ranging complaints related to Raab’s most recent role as justice secretary, from 2022-23.
Such was the detrimental impact of Raab’s behaviour on staff, it was claimed that they suffered stress and anxiety, and felt forced to take special unpaid leave – or in one case stress-related sick leave.
One complaint was made informally to the department last spring by nine staff but resubmitted formally in November 2022 unchanged, and five separate additional complaints were made after the inquiry was announced.
Raab’s response
The former deputy prime minister cannot be accused of failing to engage with Tolley’s inquiry, having sat down for four interviews taking two and a half days in total and responded in writing as well.
Raab disputed substantial parts of the report, including:
The remit: Raab argued many of the accusations were undermined by the fact that they were made so long ago. And he argued Tolley should not look at uncorroborated accusations made after media leaks about the report’s contents began to appear. Tolley disagreed.
Definition of bullying: Raab argued his behaviour should only count as bullying if he knew it was bullying, or clearly should have known. Tolley disagreed, saying it was the victim’s experience that mattered more than Raab’s intention. The KC argued bullying could constitute “personal styles, which feel like bullying (or other misconduct) to the individual, but are not intended to be so and where the perpetrator may often be unaware of the impact”.
Intent of the complainants: Raab has argued he was deliberately targeted by a group of senior civil servants who disagreed with him on policy positions. He told Tolley he had encountered “cultural resistance” to his policy priorities while justice secretary, including that of bringing in a British bill of rights as a potential replacement for the European convention on human rights.
Tolley does not make a judgment on whether there was any such resistance, but he does uphold the integrity of the complainants. “I find that the complainants were in every case acting in good faith in raising concerns which they genuinely held,” the report says. “In some cases, their experience involved a significant adverse impact on their health.”
Resilience of the complainants: Tolley reveals that at no point did Raab complain that senior officials were “snowflakes”. But he did argue that he was entitled to a certain degree of “resilience” on their part. Tolley agrees, but argues that he got it. “I did not detect any material lack of resilience in those who had made the complaints,” the report says. “Most of the individuals in question had many years of experience working closely with ministers.”
Tolley’s conclusions
Two batches of up to seven complaints were ultimately upheld by Tolley.
Intimidation and unconstructive criticism at the MoJ
As justice secretary, Tolley said, Raab had “acted in a manner which was intimidating” by going further than appropriate in “delivering critical feedback”, and insulting officials by making “unconstructive critical comments” about their work.
Though it was disputed, Tolley said he believed Raab had complained about the “obstructiveness” of staff and branded their work “utterly useless” and “woeful”.
Combined with an interruptive style of cutting people off because he did not like having his time wasted, his behaviour was intimidating and abrasive, said the report.
Though Raab had since regulated his level of abrasiveness, this should have happened sooner following private discussions with the permanent secretary, said the report.
One example singled out by Tolley was when Raab demanded a meeting with a policy official “for the sole purpose of criticising them for their team’s failure to deliver a submission on time” despite there being “no underlying urgency”. For the person involved, they found it “humiliating and upsetting”, the KC said.
If a relatively minor issue was not solved, Tolley said Raab would “press repeatedly to identify the very junior official responsible” and order a more senior staff member to deliver a personal apology.
Tolley said while claims about poor mental health and people going on leave were made, he could not make a ruling on whether these were directly caused by Raab’s behaviour as justice secretary.
Abuse of power at the Foreign Office
At the Foreign Office, Raab also had to be spoken to by the permanent secretary for acting in an intimidating way, said Tolley.
Raab’s fit of frustration when he questioned whether officials were breaching the ministerial code constituted “an abuse or misuse of power” in a way that undermined and humiliated them.
Tolley dismissed the allegation made about Raab at the Brexit department. He said it was an “intense and politically fraught” time, and Raab’s behaviour could not be described as offensive, malicious or insulting. Nor did anyone draw to Raab’s attention that his conduct was in any way problematic, according to the report.
Some complaints about Raab raising his hand to interrupt a staff member or him banging the table to make a point were not “likely to cause alarm”, Tolley found. He also said there was “no persuasive evidence” that Raab shouted at anyone, or swore either at specific staff or in general.
Despite Raab’s insistence he just had high standards, Tolley found said there was no “lack of resilience” among complainants, and added most of them had many years of experience working closely with ministers.
