If you’ve been following the news recently, you will probably have heard of the case of Dan Kaszeta, a world-recognised expert in defence who was invited to speak at a chemical weapons demilitarisation conference in May this year, but later had the invitation rescinded due to covert government ‘blacklisting’ of which he had no prior knowledge.
What happened to Kaszeta is part of a much wider picture. It happened to me, and to several other experts who have since come forward to tell their stories.
Cancelled without notice
In January 2023, I was contacted by a group that was bidding to become one of the Department for Education’s (DfE) ‘stronger practice hubs’ for staff working with children under five. This is a programme set up by the DfE, funded by the public purse. I was invited to speak at their launch event in early March, alongside my colleague Aaron Bradbury. Although this was a busy time in my diary, I liked the idea of the hubs and I liked the ethos of the staff. I therefore wanted to help out, particularly as early years is very much my specialism, so I agreed to make a presentation at the event.
Three days before we were due to speak, I received a message from Bradbury saying that a spokesperson for the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), which oversees the hubs, had made contact to say that the DfE was not happy with their choice of speakers, and had requested cancellation of the conference. The hub leader asked why and was told Bradbury and I had been classified as ‘unsuitable’.
The hub leader challenged this decision, and after much discussion was told we would only be allowed to speak remotely. Again, she refused, pointing out that it wouldn’t be fair to expect childminders and nursery workers to give up their Saturday to attend a conference in a venue only to watch speakers on a screen.
She was then informed that a slide in our presentation would need to be removed. The slide referred to a non-statutory document produced by the early years sector, ‘Birth to 5 Matters’. Bradbury and I were asked if we were willing to remove the slide. We refused.
By this time there were only two days to go before the conference. Bradbury and I immediately sought legal advice and wrote to the DfE and NCB asking for clarification. In the end, we were allowed to speak, the person from the NCB who had said that the conference would have to be cancelled attended, and the conference was a great success with excellent feedback.
Seeking further clarity from the DfE
We were determined not to leave the situation there; we wanted to know exactly why we had been deemed unsuitable.
This was very important to me, as I work as freelance consultant. After my husband died last year, I became a single parent, the only adult in the household to pay the mortgage, put food in the fridge and support my teenage daughter. My employment prospects rest entirely on my reputation. If it is destroyed, I have no income.
I was placed in an impossible position, knowing that my reputation could be destroyed by powerful forces briefing against me, but alternatively, that speaking out might escalate that process, resulting in me losing even more employment opportunities.
After some consideration, I’ve decided to speak openly about what happened to me, because in a democratic nation, openness about covert blacklisting and cancellation by the government process, really matters.
Deep in the ministry records
Bradbury and I scheduled a meeting with the DfE and were eventually granted an online meeting. It then quickly became apparent that someone within the ministry had raised an issue about the two of us being critical of the government, and in particular us being ‘unkind’ about a non-statutory government document endorsed by the DfE. On this basis, they had contacted a potential employer, and suggested that both of us were unsuitable to speak.
I asked for evidence of this public criticism, and alleged ‘unkindness’, but the DfE representatives were very clear that they would not be naming our accuser. The furthest they would be drawn was that they had evidence that I had been “unkind to the document on Twitter”. I was somewhat bewildered, as I didn’t know it was possible to be unkind to a document.
It’s very difficult to defend yourself when you don’t know what you’re actually being accused of, and the accuser hides behind anonymity. As an education professional for more than 30 years, I would not tweet anything that I wouldn’t want to be seen by my daughters, my 87-year-old mum, or by anyone who employs me. It would also not be in my interest to be ‘unkind’ on social media, given that most of my potential employers are amongst my 40K followers.
I can be professionally and robustly critical, but I always try to be kind.
Obtaining more information via a subject access request
At this point, I felt there was no point in continuing with the conversation, so I left the meeting and submitted a subject access request to the DfE to find out what information they held on me.
The response shows that DfE staff scoured for, but could not find, any evidence on my Twitter account of ‘unkindness’ to the aforementioned document.
A request to “do some digging on Ruth Swales” (sic) was met with the response “can’t find anything specific from Ruth that brings the department into disrepute. Favour Birth to 5 Matters and promote that quite a lot via Twitter and at different speaking events but I can’t see anywhere that they have discredited (the ministry endorsed document) Development Matters”.
These messages were dated a month before the event in March 2023, but the hub lead was still contacted and told I was unsuitable to speak. So even though they had failed to find evidence of what I was being (anonymously) accused of, I was still deemed unsuitable. That’s really not ok.
The right of reply
Apart from anything else, the statement that I favour one document over others at speaking events is total nonsense. I spoke publicly at over 100 events last year, and unless a DfE representative was at every single one, they can’t possibly know what I said at every event.
If they had bothered to attend even a handful of events, they would discover that I actually promote a measured approach, stating that both documents have their uses, both are non-statutory (because guidance, in general, for the early years stage is not statutory), and that staff should use what they find useful from either, both, or neither.
Interestingly, Bradbury’s subject access request was worded in exactly the same way with regard to Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters, indicating that officials had taken a blanket approach to investigating us. The whole process appeared to be rushed and, to a great extent, casual.
It was as though the ministry did not understand what a dangerous process they had engaged in, scouring the internet for information to surreptitiously use against someone, without giving them a right of reply. I frankly found the whole episode very frightening; a sign of a society sliding towards autocracy and dictatorship.
Initially, that seemed to be that. A forum for a right to reply did not seem to be forthcoming. But things changed when chemical weapons expert Kaszeta revealed that he had experienced exactly the same type of unwarranted investigation. He pursued the matter through a legal challenge and has since received an apology. He made contact with me and Bradbury and we are now working with his legal team to pursue our own case.
The aftermath
Bradbury and I are currently left in a situation in which we suspect that our livelihoods might have already been damaged. I have already had a cancelled booking for a conference which I was told was not going ahead, which I later discovered had taken place after all.
But there are bigger things at stake than one cancelled booking. I may not like the things that other people have to say, but I defend their right to say them, unless they are sharing hate speech or concepts/ideas that are harmful to others.
An unfounded accusation that I had ‘been unkind’ to a non-statutory government document should not have been a reason to attempt to cancel my presence at professional events. Beyond the impact on me personally, it removes my expertise and connections with expert practice around the world from England’s state education system.
If this is happening daily across the UK’s ministries, it also paints a frightening picture of a narrowing of discussion and expertise in policy making.
John Dickens, editor of Schools Week, reports that when he asked the DfE to release information about how many education speakers had been cancelled, they replied:
“The Department is unable to confirm whether it holds the information you have requested because it estimates that the cost of determining whether it holds the information would exceed the cost threshold applicable to central Government. This is £600 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the information.”
This seems to indicate that there isn’t a systematic approach to the vetting of education experts, supporting my experience, of an essentially ad hoc ‘digging’ process.
Similar experiences reported
Since I went public about my experience of ‘cancellation’, I have been told of other education experts submitting information requests relating to government ‘blacklisting’. Many have found that the government has also been monitoring their Twitter accounts, even if they have no track record of working for DfE-sponsored institutions or projects.
Sue Cowley, a teacher educator and author of education practice books who has no record of speaking at DfE-sponsored events, put in her own subject access request, out of curiosity. The result was several pages of internal DfE emails quoting her Twitter account not only on practical education matters, but also monitoring her criticism of Covid policies, and the level of engagement with the relevant tweets.
In the last few days, the government has withdrawn the documentation used in their attempt to silence Kaszeta. Bradbury and I currently await a response from the DfE as to whether this will mean that we will be deemed suitable to work with the hubs again.
Speaking out for democracy
In speaking out, we have shone a light on some very unusual and potentially undemocratic practices taking place within British ministries, which has rightly shocked a lot of people.
I am grateful to Kaszeta and his legal team for their support and encouragement; I am also indebted to Edward Lucas of The Times, who took the time to listen when I told him what had happened to me, and took great care to make sure the wording of his story reflected my experiences. I am also grateful to Karam Bales of Byline Times and Warwick Mansell of Education Uncovered, both of whom have pursued this story relentlessly.
I also spoke out for my daughters’ sake. My deceased husband Pete and I have always tried to model decent moral behaviour for our two daughters: always try do what is right, even if it’s scary; say sorry if you make a mistake; speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves; speak out against injustice. So I needed to step up to demonstrate to my children, and to others in society, that citizens of an allegedly free society need to act when injustice is uncovered.
We must stand up, speak out, and keep speaking out until justice is done. I’ve certainly had a tough few months on the back of a pretty tough couple of years, but I’m made of robust stuff and I’m tenacious. I’d encourage everyone else who has experienced similar injustice to speak out if they feel able to do so. There is now a Crowd Justice account for those seeking funding for legal action. Together, we can make it less likely that surreptitious cancellation by UK government ministries happens to anyone else.
