The news that basic human resources failings in government departments are costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds is shocking but perhaps should come as no surprise.
As Personnel Today magazine reports this week, one in four civil servant sackings was found to be unlawful in 2005-06, according to the annual report of the Civil Service Appeal Board (CSAB).
Board chairman John Davies said HR professionals in government departments were still not following standard dismissal procedures - a year after he orginally warned of the problem.
This is astonishing. The situation has become so serious that Davies - a former personnel director at Barclays Bank - who has been CSAB chair for eight years, is now offering to "accept invitations" from various departments to highlight some of the common pitfalls that lead to dismissals being found unfair.
Paying sufficient attention to the standard statutory dismissal procedures, however unpopular, they might be, is just bread and butter HR.
This report heaps further misery on already under fire Whitehall HR departments. It also lays bare the size of the challenge facing Gill Rider, the Civil Service's head of HR.
Several departmental capability reviews over the past 12 months have highlighted poor people management and inadequate HR provision at the heart of government failings.
All this evidence leads us to one conclusion - that the majority of the thousands of HR professionals that populate the Civil Service are not up to the job, so much so they can't even get the basics right.
These failings paint the whole profession in a bad light. While £600,000 plus is a lot of public money, the ongoing damage to HR's reputation could prove to be more costly.
