Beleaguered business group the Confederation of British Industry CBI) was a toxic culture for women with a failure to deal seriously with sexual harassment concerns, a damning independent report has found.
Admitting its failings, the CBI said that because of its inaction, a "very small minority" of staff believed they could act with impunity in harassment of female staff.
Several staff had now been dismissed, it said.
In an open letter published on its website following the investigation by law firm Fox Williams, Brian McBride, the CBI’s president, said: “We failed to filter out culturally toxic people during the hiring process.
“We failed to conduct proper cultural onboarding of staff.
“Some of our managers were promoted too quickly without the necessary prior and ongoing training to protect our cultural values and to properly react when those values were violated.
“In assessing performance, we paid more attention to competence than to behaviour.”
Fox Wiliams was appointed after an allegation was made against director general Tony Dankers in January, McBride said, an accusation that eventually led to his dismissal.
Since then, two rape allegations have come to light and are being investigated by the police alongside a series of harassment complaints.
There was a collective "sense of shame" at the organisation’s failure, said McBride.
Whether the CBI survives is now in question as companies have barely been able to move fast enough to shun the organisation since the allegations emerged.
John Lewis, BMW, Virgin Media O2, insurers Aviva, Zurich and Phoenix Group, banking firm Natwest, Mastercard; B&Q-owner Kingfisher and media firm ITV have all left.
Earlier this week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said there was "no point" engaging with the CBI any more.
McBride said it would implement fully all of the recommendations made by Fox Williams, among which are a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and bullying behaviour; compulsory training, covering bullying and harassment prevention, with recruitment and new staff onboarding processes to be similarly revised.
Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI’s former chief economist, has been approached to become the new director general, with the recruitment of a chief people officer (CPO) underway.
A confidential whistleblowing channel outside the CBI is also to be set up.