A former top government statistician who claims she was made a scapegoat by the Department of Health has failed to overturn a gagging agreement that forbids her from talking about her departure.

Leeds Employment Tribunal said Denise Lievesley, former head of the Information Centre, the NHS data factory, should honour the deal, which stopped her publicising criticism of a controversial public private health information venture.

The narrow ruling made no comment on the credibility of Professor Lievesley’s written evidence to the tribunal, which claimed she repeatedly raised the alarm with top health officials about the venture’s worth and its handling of data.

The tribunal ruling, which was published last week, said there was no reason Prof Lievesley should be able to renege on a deal she struck with the Information Centre over her July 2007 departure.

Judge Colin Grazin said: “The claimant . . . should not, in my judgment, now be allowed to resile from that clear agreement and to argue that there was a dismissal at all, let alone that there was an unfair dismissal.”

He noted Prof Lievesley made the agreement with the centre in writing after taking competent legal advice. The professor, a former Royal Statistical Society president, received a £65,825 pay-off in lieu of notice.

Judge Grazin said it was clear that Prof Lievesley was worried about whether proper procedures were followed during the creation of the public-private data joint venture, known as Dr Foster Intelligence. In spite of her concerns, she felt she had “no option” but to work with the joint venture and to try to do her best “in difficult circumstances”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de3be88e-d5e7-11dc-bbb2-0000779fd2ac.html