Two resignations in the past two weeks on the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s (REC’s) governing council has put the governance of the industry’s largest trade body under the spotlight.

At the same time, a new controversy has emerged involving a senior REC figure at the centre of the trade body’s loss of an unfair dismissal claim at a London Central employment tribunal earlier this month (Recruiter, 9 March). The REC’s Council of Directors has been challenged by REC critics to justify the video endorsement of consultant Martyn Noble of a product and service of a recruitment industry supplier on the supplier’s website. Noble, a self-employed consultant for the REC since August 2008, was previously identified as the REC’s commercial director, although the REC website currently identifies him as the body’s director of member delivery.

On 11 March, the REC announced the resignation of Angela Masters from the chair on the Council of Directors, citing a “misunderstanding” over the allowable length of her tenure in the leadership role. Masters’ continuation past three years in the chair’s role had come under fire from REC critics, a group known as Manifesto for Progress.

The second resignation was revealed on 14 March when Kim-Marie Freeston announced she had resigned her corporate director’s role on the council because of her concerns over how the Masters matter had been dealt with. In a prepared statement, the REC thanked Freeston for her service and expressed “disappointment” about her resignation, saying “the issue was a genuine administrative error which the Council has now rectified”.

A video, brought to the Council’s attention by Manifesto for Progress member Jeanette Robinson, shows Noble endorsing a product and service of a well-known psychometric testing firm on the firm’s own website. Identifying himself on video as “one of the directors”of the REC, Noble says he led a recent “restructuring” and “transformation” of the organisation, and suggests that the REC used the tools in that process. “On whose authority is he doing this?” Robinson asked in her 16 March letter to the Council. “As members who use a variety of such tests we feel it is not right for a recruitment trade organisation to trumpet the benefits of one particular brand … at the expense of others.”

The REC responded to Recruiter’s request for comment by saying the test company is “a business partner of the REC and we promote their products (and those of other business partners) to our members as part of this partnership”. On this occasion, the statement said, Noble was speaking as “an executive director” of the REC.

Recruiter asked other organisations for comment on best practice for trade bodies with regard to endorsements, without identifying the parties in the case. Philippa Foster Back, OBE, director of the Institute of Business Ethics, told Recruiter it was “totally inappropriate in a trade body to highlight one particular firm because there could be a potential conflict of interest”. Foster Back went on to say that it was also “highly unusual for a consultant to hold themselves up as an employee”.

At the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Vanessa Robinson, head of HR practice development, said CIPD representatives would “absolutely not go out endorsing a particular product with their CIPD hat on”.

At press time, the REC Council was set to meet today (23 March) to choose a new chair.