Abusive Managers and Disciplinary Outcomes
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Further to my recent request on the 2012 staff survey; https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s... which confirms that Wirral MBC as an employer, is perceived by staff to have a culture of bullying and harassment, I now have a follow up request.
The findings of this 2012 survey reinforces conclusions from recent independent reports that found the organisation to have a problem of bullying and general abusiveness with particular regard to management, e.g. Martin Smith and AKA reports.
Therefore within this context I now require the following information:
1, based on however long your records go back, the number of upheld cases of grievances for bullying and harassment against MANAGERS only, which will be either fully upheld grievances or where they have been partially upheld, and please give the number by year.
2, for each of these fully or partially upheld cases of bullying and harassment against managers, please disclose the disciplinary sanction, e.g, dismissal, final or verbal warnings etc
2, based on the fact that bullying and harassment constitutes gross misconduct on your own code of conduct for employees, please indicate the reasons where applicable why any upheld cases against managers were not treated as gross misconduct and dealt with accordingly.
Yours faithfully,
I. Sevova
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Once again you are in breach of FOI law despite claims that improvements have been made since your terms of monitoring by the Information Commissioner.
Please immediately give me a timeframe for the completion of this request or I shall refer it to the ICO. I am reluctant to ask for a routine internal review as I know through experience that this enables you to merely delay requests indefinitely.
Yours faithfully,
I. Sevova
Good Morning,
Thank you for your enquiry below, please see attachment as Council’s
response. Apologies for the slight delay in responding, I hope the
information is useful to you.
Kind regards
Jane Corrin
Information and Central Services Manager
Transformation and Resources
Wirral Council
This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to
use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial research you
are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for
example commercial publication, would require our specific permission,
may involve licensing and the application of a charge.
Dear Corrin, Jane,
Thank you for the partial response. Please now answer the third part of my request (in error written as '2')which you have completely ignored and inform me how long I should wait for this?
I trust that as you have not answered my request in full that the "clock" will not need to start again and you will speedily deal with the rest of my request.
Please give me an estimate of how long I now need to wait so I can consider my options of whether to complain to the ICO.
Yours sincerely,
I. Sevova
Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your further enquiry below. Your third question was not
ignored and was answered by the text I have detailed for you below:-
Response to final question also labelled 2:
Wirral Council can confirm in respect of each case that each case is dealt
with in accordance with procedures, on an individual basis.
To give further clarification, the Council treated each case individually
and acted appropriately. The Council would be unable to release any
detailed recorded information in relation to individual cases, as this may
lead to the identification of individuals and breach The Data Protection
Act 1998. (If this detail was to be requested then the Council would rely
on exempting the information because of the provisions of The Data
Protection Act 1998.)
Kind regards
Jane Corrin
Information and Central Services Manager
Transformation and Resources
Wirral Council
This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to
use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial research you
are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for
example commercial publication, would require our specific permission,
may involve licensing and the application of a charge.
From: I. Sevova [mailto:[FOI #171965 email]]
Sent: 06 September 2013 11:44
To: Corrin, Jane
Subject: Re: FOI 707431 - I. Sevova - Abusive Managers and Disciplinary
Outcomes
Dear Corrin, Jane,
Thank you for the partial response. Please now answer the third part of my
request (in error written as '2')which you have completely ignored and
inform me how long I should wait for this?
I trust that as you have not answered my request in full that the "clock"
will not need to start again and you will speedily deal with the rest of
my request.
Please give me an estimate of how long I now need to wait so I can
consider my options of whether to complain to the ICO.
Yours sincerely,
I. Sevova
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
So, this is clearly a major reason why Wirral MBC is Britain's most abusive council whereby managers abuse with impunity and this is now proven by this request and borne out by independent reports (AKA and Martin Smith) as well as a major recent staff survey.
Out of all these cases of UPHELD bullying and harassment only one manager got a verbal warning and this is DESPITE BULLYING AND HARASSMENT appearing unambiguously in the Employee Code of Conduct as GROSS MISCONDUCT!!
How on earth does a BRIEF explanation for each case on WHY they were NOT treated as GROSS MISCONDUCT breach data protection? I do not believe that this would identify individuals concerned but again this is yet more evidence that Wirral MBC is being obstructive when it comes to providing sensitive information that may clearly confirm yet again, its widely held reputation as an abusive employer.
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Abusive Managers and Disciplinary Outcomes'.
Based on part of my original request which was overlooked/ignored, I am asking for the reasons why cases of UPHELD bullying and harassment against managers have not been treated as gross misconduct despite the fact that the employee code of conduct clearly and UNAMBIGUOUSLY states that bullying and harassment constitutes gross misconduct.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a...
Yours faithfully,
I. Sevova
Dear Jane,
Please kindly advise the status of this internal review requested over one month ago.
Also I wish to clarify that I am not seeking information that may in any way identity individuals through job titles, departments or through unique case details.
I merely want a very brief explanation on each upheld case that you cite in your response why the gross misconduct rules did not apply.
Bullying and harassment is listed on your own employee disciplinary guidelines as gross misconduct yet none of the upheld cases led to sanctions based on your own rules.
If there is no appropriate punishment then clearly there is no deterrent. Wirral Council has a long standing problem borne out by independent reports and staff surveys of bullying and harassment perpetrated by managers, so I think the final part of my request is pertinent and reasonable.
Yours sincerely,
I. Sevova
Dear Corrin, Jane,
You have ignored my polite request for a status update sent two weeks ago for the internal review made in early September.
Please now kindly respond and inform me as to the current situation.
Yours sincerely,
I. Sevova
I am away from the office today and tomorrow. If you have an urgent query
please use the contact details below, related to the service area you
require:-
Freedom of Information email [Wirral Borough Council request email]
or call 691 8201
GIS enquiries call 606 2026
Records Management enquiries call 606 2923
Archives enquiries call 606 2922
Postal enquiries or Wallasey Based Records call 691 8414
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information and Central Services Manager
Dear Corrin, Jane,
I see it's a case of 'same old same old' despite promises to improve!
I'm hoping this will be a case of third time lucky and you may give me a status update after completely ignoring my previous requests
Yours sincerely,
I. Sevova
Good Afternoon,
Apologies for the delay in responding to you. Your request has now been
subject to an Internal Review and the text below should be taken as
council’s response to your request for an IR.
The Reviewing Officer has read the history of your enquiry and upholds the
original decision that the questions you raised were answered in part by
the supply of recorded information held by the Authority. In addition to
this, the Internal Review upholds the decision to refuse to supply some
information as it may contravene The Data Protection Act 1998. The
Council is relying on the exemption contained within section 40 (2) and
was unable to provide the details requested because it believes the
information requested is personal data, as it relates to living
individuals who may be identified from that data. (Section 1 (1) of the
Data Protection Act 1998). Therefore your request for some additional
information was refused pursuant to Section 17 (1) of Freedom of
Information Act 2000, and the exemption contained in Section 40 (2) of the
Act.
You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, if you are
dissatisfied with the outcome of this internal review:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Tel: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Fax: 01625 524510 [1]www.ico.gov.uk <[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/>
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information and Central Services Manager
Transformation and Resources
Wirral Council
I. Sevova left an annotation ()
pathetic but also so true to form.
Britain's officially recognised number one most mendacious and abusive council doing what it does best, protecting bullies, playing at being obtuse and obstructing pertinent requests for information.
I made it quite clear that I didnt want anything that may in any way identify individuals but the point is that Wirral MBC's long history of a bullying employer has to remain beyond any kind of scrutiny. The usual window dressing, staff surveys and action plans but not one single abusive manager is disciplined.
I shall of course complain to the ICO
A.D.Black left an annotation ()
I have just stumbled across this web site and discovered the problems a person titled as Sevona has had with Jane Corrin the lady responsible for FOI and Subject Access Requests. Suprise suprise but I have had exactly the same problems where Ms Corrin refused me information I requested which has resulted in me lodging a complaint with ICO. What strikes me is how many others have had the same problems ? I have recently engaged in a war of words with Graham Burgess over his claims that the council has 'improved' what nonsense ! He claims his claims are backed by a Council Improvement board !
I. Sevova left an annotation ()
....Indeed.
Burgess isn't interested in any rigorous proof that Wirral has improved and "improved" for him just means the Council getting away with abuse, incompetence and corruption, and things not being scrutinised through democracy and due process taking a back seat as always.
Very much like the Police policing itself as far as Improvement Boards are concerned. The only improvement is intended for the gentlemen's club of senior officers and Councillors! That is to say a reduction of scandal leaking through to the people who pay their hugely inflated salaries!!
A.D.Black left an annotation ()
Thanks Sevova. I intend to pursue Burgess over his improvement claims. I only found out about the Improvement board some weeks before the final report. I submitted information about the Council failings to the Chair of the board but she didn't include my info. I feel therefore the report was flawed and misleading. I hope eventually to have the report examined by The Local Government Ombudsman
Paul Cardin left an annotation ()
Mr Burgess's "improvement model" is based on the Police's investigatory model.
They investigate themselves. At great ££cost to us, the public.
The LGA is the national, professional body, speaking for councils up and down the land. So it's a case of...
"They would say that, wouldn't they?"
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Dave rimmer left an annotation ()
Oh dear me, sounds like a pass the buck with the intention of hoping you will give up