Over the past week or so, the DUP MP, David Simpson seems to have been asking a series of questions to all the department. These have been along the lines of how many official complaints of bullying had there been over the past 12 months. Generally speaking most of the responses have been "none" (well at least from the Welsh Office and Culture, Media & Sport from what I can recall).
To be honest I wasn't excepting many of the departments to have that much to say on it, but it seems I was -unusually for me - wrong. The Department for International Development has had 5 incidents of bullying in the last 12 months, whilst the Department of Constitutional Affairs has received 16 official complaints (although only two were upheld fully with another two partially upheld.
What surprised me most was that (so far at least), the department with the most complaints of bullying is Work and Pensions. Which is of course richly ironic given its remit and purpose. The department essentially responsible for policy on matter of workplace bullying also happens to have the worst rate of bullying in Whitehall - at least no one can deny they are experts in their policy area!
According to the DWP minister Anne Mcguire, there have been 102 official complaints of bullying in the last 12 months with 32 being upheld. That's just under 3 incidents each month in the department with a mission statement of promoting an environment free from "bullying and intimidation". Perhaps some of its staff have literacy problems?
What's more though, David Simpson has also been asking about incidence of sexual harassment across Whitehall. Again the answers have been "none" from most of the departments except one. Can you guess which? Yep, the DWP. In the last 12 months there have been 20 complaints of sexual harassment with 13 of them being upheld. That's one a month.
I wonder what the figures are for the Deputy Prime Minister's Office and its precursor?
4 comments:
You may enjoy THIS. Have pasted the html into the story in case they change it as someone (a co-conspirator) has tipped them off.
Have you considered pro-rata-ing the figures depending on the workforce? Or considering the set up? DWP is a much bigger department with lots and lots of small office and shop units than the other ones. Just a thought.
Seeing as DWP employ something like 30% of all civil servants in this country, you are bound to find higher instances of almost anything.
So the DWP hires better quality chicks, or more desperate men?
I think we all know which applies in the case of the DPM.
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