This policy aims to:
- Encourage you to feel confident in raising serious concerns and to question and act upon concerns about practice;
- Provide avenues for you to raise those concerns and receive feedback on any action taken;
- Ensure that you receive a response to your concerns and that you are aware of how to pursue them if you are not satisfied; and
- Reassure you that you will be protected from possible reprisals or victimisation if you reasonably believe that you are making any disclosure in good faith.
The Confidential Reporting Policy is intended to cover major concerns which affect or threaten other people and which fall outside the scope of other procedures. These concerns could be:
- Conduct which is an offence or a breach of the law;
- A miscarriage of justice;
- Health and safety risks, including risks to the public as well as other employees;
- Damage to the environment;
- The unauthorised use of public funds;
- Fraud or corruption; and
- Sexual, physical or mental abuse, or other unethical conduct.
Thus, any serious concerns that you have about any aspect of service provision, or the conduct of officers or members of the Councils, or others acting on behalf of the Councils that;
- Make you feel uncomfortable because it doesn't comply with known standards, or with your experience of the standards you believe the Councils subscribes to; or
- Is against the Councils' Standing Orders and policies; or
- Falls below established standards of practice; or
- Amounts to improper conduct;
can be reported under this Confidential Reporting Policy.
There are other procedures in place to enable you to:
- Lodge a grievance relating to your own employment where your concerns are about your own position, rather than the protection of the public, use the employees' Grievance Procedure;
- Make a complaint about a decision of the Councils which has affected you or somebody else as a user of the service, use the Complaints Procedure; or
- Complain about the conduct of a councillor, use the Standards Complaints Procedure.
You should not use this policy for those concerns.
