I wouldn’t call him anything other than Mr Davies or Director-General, and I know that he objects strongly to people he doesn’t know using his Christian name.
He is potty about animals, and has three horses and various dogs and cats. My first job is to keep Mr Davies happy by making him a cup of coffee, then I try to get him to deal with the mail straight away. If I were inefficient I simply wouldn’t be here, but if Ido make mistakes I always go to the D-G and say, “I come to you on my hands and knees.” If I pussy-footed around, he wouldn’t like it at all. When the vet said that his poorly old lurcher should be euthanased, the D-G asked him to wait a few days, until he could be there to hold the dog’s paw himself. I joke with them that it’s either because of me or in spite of me that they keep changing; each one has been entirely different from the last.

On meeting the current D-G I immediately realised that he was from a military background. Maureen Salter is PA to Peter Davies

I’ve worked for the RSPCA for 20 years, under six director-generals. It is because they are concerned that any relationship will have an adverse impact on peoples’ work,” Nickson said.Other companies realise they cannot stop employees having relationships and simply ask to be informed.”Most of them do not wish to know unless and until it becomes a problem. They do not want to be in the situation where one half of a married couple is having an affair and the rest of the office has to lie about it, which is very bad for business.”As long as the British approach to office relationships seems to be working, it is unlikely that the so-called “love contracts” will be instigated. But perhaps Bill Clinton is wishing he had heard of them when he took office..

“It is not the company’s business for the most part and we would much rather that people were open about it,” he said. “Our policy is that if you treat people like adults they will behave like adults, and if a relationship breaks up we try and find a way that both people can stay with the company by perhapsgiving them different responsibilities. It is a question of being flexible.”Sue Nickson, joint head of employment at Hammond Suddards, said there are obvious difficulties with the contracts, not least of which was that the couple would have to own up to having a relationship in the first place. “Either they own up to it or they may be ’snitched on’ by colleagues, or even caught in the act behind the photocopier,” she said. “Most UK firms have turned a blind eye to such relationships unless the problems become impossible to ignore and some of the more proactive ones have formulated policies relating to inter-office relationships which are incorporated into an employee’s contract.”Contracts varied widely, but the most common approach was to forbid office relationships altogether. “Usually the contract will say something like ‘we as a company do not entertain the idea of staff having relationships at work, and if there is one then we must be informed so that we can make arrangements for internal transfers’. “They are just a way of trying to control employees’ behaviour and I would be very surprised if they came over here.”We are not as litigious as the Americans and I think directors would feel that it did not reflect well on their company if they were forcing people to sign contracts about their relationships.”Niall Murphy, a spokesman for the London office of the American firm AT&T, said the company tried to act in a mature and pragmatic way towards office relationships and saw no need for contracts.

Ian Hunter, a solicitor at Bird & Bird, said that British firms already had adequate disciplinary procedures to deal with office relationships. “Companies have recourse to charges of gross misconduct and sexual discrimination and there is no need for these contracts,” he said. She said she was sacked after depression, following the operation, prevented her from returning to work. She took two drug overdoses and said she was seen by a psychologist, paid for by the ECB, who tried to persuade her to leave her job. She and her boyfriend, who she has refused to name, have since split up.British employment experts believe that these contracts will not be taken up in the UK despite increasing concern over the issue of inter-office relationships.