ACE ‘institutionally racist’, former employee claims

Staff at Arts Council England (ACE) harassed and persecuted a fellow employee due to the colour of her skin, it has been claimed.

An employment tribunal this week heard that Corynne Elliot, an award-winning musician who performs under the name Speech Debelle, was appointed as a Relationship Manager at ACE on a part-time basis in 2017.

Elliot told the hearing that a number of separate incidents featuring microaggressions, harassment and bullying, led to work-related stress and anxiety and her eventual resignation from the role in 2021.

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The tribunal heard the first alleged incident in November 2019 involved a Senior Relationship Manager (SRM) who was overseeing Elliot's preparation of letters for a music education hub.

A scheduled meeting to discuss the letters in advance of an upcoming deadline for them to be sent out, was cancelled by Elliot the day before, due to a "last minute" dentist appointment to fix a broken filling.

The SRM suggested meeting earlier in the day, before the appointment. After not receiving a response, she then saw Elliot in the office speaking with a colleague and, after some time, approached her in what was described to the tribunal as a "rude" and "aggressive" way.

'Black staff don't work'

Another incident related to the response of her line manager, himself a person of mixed ethnic background, after Elliot reported an alleged racist comment made by a colleague along the lines of "black staff don't work".

His response to the comment, which Elliot did not witness, was "we should show them". "[He said] If I were to come in more, I would be able to prove to them it is not the case," Elliot said.

"My response was that it was unfortunate [he] would want me to prove myself to a racist. It was a form of institutional racism.

"I said it was wildly offensive that we should prove ourselves to racists and he apologised."

On another occasion, at an awayday which Elliot did not attend, a colleague was reported to have said: "Speech should be here today to teach us about hip-hop culture".

The tribunal heard that another ACE member of staff at the event said they found the comment "offensive".

"For [the person making the comment] to assume my job role was to improve her knowledge in music I believe is based on race," Elliot told the tribunal.

Institutional racism

Another situation involved five attempts by her line manager and an HR manager to contact Elliot in a single day after she failed to attend a meeting in June 2021. This was followed by a phone call to her mother the next day when no response was recieved.

"It is not a measured response to contact me so many times," Elliot, who was at that time working remotely and much of the time "offline" due to health related-issues, told the tribunal. 

"I had a meeting and called to say I was not attending. Emails are a trigger for me and make me ill. I had to work offline, checking emails in the morning and in the evening.

"At this point there's a campaign against me. Since 2019, I had been talking about and raising grievances about institutional racism. The grievances I raised are a pattern of institutional racism. 

"I felt like they had moved into a level of persecution – trying to push me out willingly, or get me out another way."

'Distorted interpretation'

Elliot also raised concerns about an email she recieved from HR at 6.40am on a Friday, while she was on leave, inviting her to a meeting the following Monday to discuss an occupational health report on how she could return to work.

She said the fact that the subject header for the email was titled "you" was offensive to her. 

"Because of the experience I was having it was verbal violence," she said. 

"This is not the first time [the HR manager] has been covert in her behaviour towards me. It's a covert act of bullying and dehumanisation."

ACE's legal representative Tara O'Halloran told the tribunal the situation was "another example of [Elliot's] distorted interpretation".

She also pointed to the fact that an external investigation into one of the claims, which found no evidence of bullying, said Elliot "was not used to working for an organisation like the Arts Council and had difficulties being performance managed".

She added that her line manager had been getting "increasingly frustrated" with the amount of work allocated to her that was being done by other people. There was "no evidence that anyone of a different race would be treated differently".

O'Halloran also pointed out that the content of emails sent to Elliot were typically "supportive and understanding".

She said Elliot has provided the tribunal with "untruthful information" and was making "unfounded and unfair accusations against good people and a good employer" that they were racist and lacked integrity.

The hearing continues.