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Bullying accusations at Moray Council

Councillors will meet again to agree leadership positions on Wednesday.
Councillors will meet again to agree leadership positions on Wednesday.

Accusations that staff at Moray Council are being bullied will come under the spotlight today.

An employee survey carried out by the local authority resulted in claims by 30% of respondents that they had experienced harassment in their job over the past year.

When quizzed about who was carrying out the bullying, staff could tick more than one box.

Of those who answered, 40% said they had been victimised by their boss, 36% by their colleagues, 25% by members of the public and 22% by supervisors.

The nature of the bullying was in the form of unpleasant personal remarks in 42% of cases, intimidation in 36% of cases and excessive criticism or monitoring of work in 37% of cases.

Denise Whitworth, the council’s head of human resources, said in a report: “While results can be seen to vary across services, the key message from the survey is that, across all areas, employees are reporting a challenging working environment as a result of the behaviour of others and-or an excessive workload with unrealistic targets.

“The survey gives a picture of an organisation that tolerates types of behaviour that are unacceptable to a number of its staff.

“The council must decide how to respond to this, while recognising the challenge of changing behaviour in a large and diverse organisation in a time of continuing public sector reform and reductions in budgets.”

A total of 5,181 survey forms were handed out to council staff in May.

A total of 1,506 were returned, giving a response rate of 29%.

The largest percentage of returns (77%) came from the chief executive’s office, while the lowest (11%) were returned from the council’s waste department.

The survey will be debated today at a meeting of the council’s joint consultative committee, which is made up of elected councillors and union representatives.