In dispute with work outside of work

[ThrowingDi]

Looking for advice on how to navigate a potential mess. I work at a senior level in public sector. I report to a director, (who I’m not 100% would have my back here.)

Separately to this, as a member of the public I had to engage with my employer for statutory support. Eg think personal tax, housing, benefits, nhs, or adult social care etc. A public service only my employer provides that is regulated by law.

The people dealing with my request have been shocking, they’ve broken the law in dealing with my request. I haven’t said I work for the same employer but it’s quite obvious I do as I have had to submit payslips and proof of employment to them. I also have a unique name so if they were searching their work inbox for my name, both my personal and work emails come up. I have had to put in a formal complaint (as in, the public complaint process not an employment grievance) and it is now escalating to external arbitration eg service tribunal/ombudsman so it’s a big/fully escalated thing not a minor one.

I haven’t ever discussed the personal issue at work. But I strongly suspect the people involved with my case might be blurring lines. For example some colleagues in my wider team have access to the public inboxes, the complaints inboxes, the system my claims sit on, the complaints data etc so have direct access to the details as they work on the cases. So it really all feels a bit close to home.

I just don’t know if I should bring it up to my director to give a heads up in case they find out through word of mouth? Or just keep quiet?

I work in what sounds like a reasonably similar role to yourself and would have told me line manager at the first whiff of things going wrong both to protect myself and consider any support they may be able to offer. I'd recommend sharing asap

Yes I’d say something

Discuss it with your boss. A lot of employers would expect this as standard.

You need to tell your line manager because in situations such as these there should be protocol they put into place to protect the distinction between you as an employee and you as a private citizen - i.e. no one you directly work with should have access to inboxes where they can view your personal information.

The thing is this simply isn’t going to be possible in practice. That team, works on those inboxes. They can’t be removed from their roles as “housing officer” or whatever (random job example). It’s not even that another team could take over, because they’re the only ones trained in that function.

My manager isn’t really supportive though, I’m constantly walking on eggshells with their ambiguous asks and borderline micromanagement. There’s no issue between us per se but I don’t want this to be the reason that balance tips. We’re friendly but that kind of pastoral relationship isn’t there.

Is it an interest you have declared previously at work in a declaration of interests type senario? If so if you have a governance function you could talk to them

When I worked in local government we could manage this via IT protocols and sometimes borrowing the expertise and time of neighbouring councils to keep things really clear and separate. Your organisation should have a policy around this - in fact I am fairly sure they are obliged to by law.

interesting I wasn’t aware of that. If I knew that I might have requested something from the outset.

As things are already escalated to the “regulator” in this scenario, it’s probably a moot point now. I think the only involvement my employer has now, is providing system records and a legal response direct to the regulator who will arbitrate.

It’s a slam dunk from my perspective - I know the law around this well enough to comfortably advocate and escalate it with likely success. It’s quite shocking actually that I’ve had to do that, makes me sad for the public who may experience similar and not know how to advocate

If it’s public sector presumably there is HR. I would make Hr aware and that you intend to keep the two entirely separate and you expect the same professionalism from other staff.

It's been a while, so honestly cannot remember the details, but I know that we had a policy as part of our governance. I know exactly what you mean about the point around advocacy, I feel very similar, because some people simply do not have the knowledge, or the wherewithal, or the courage. I wish you luck.

No, there’s no conflict of interest/anything that needed to be declared upfront.

Just as an example to help you understand, imagine I work for a council and had to contact their homelessness department for urgent/unexpected help fleeing DV. Then imagine they handled it seriously badly, breached their legal obligations, didn’t even respond on a timely basis and no support was offered. Then in the complaint, the Council/employer involved was very adversarial, and blamed me for being in the “DV situation”.

Then imagine my wider work team in the “council”, is a tangential link where I don’t have direct involvement with the team involved but it’s still kinda close.

I hope that makes sense, details aren’t accurate as to not be outing.

So with my employer HR is totally non existent. They act as an advisory function if that makes sense but doesn’t get involved with matters themselves. I don’t even think I have a direct route to HR.

So I can’t lie, I did some sleuthing at work in terms of figuring out who has been sending me complaints correspondence and who they report to.

i might be fucked, in that we might be in the same reporting chain under the same director that is (but different teams under the director).

You really need to speak to your employer. It seems very unorthodox not to.

@ThrowingDi please say this was not you looking at systems and more of you had a letter and looked at an org chart.

Firstly do not under any circumstances try and access anything via work. You need to be 100% scrupulous about not doing anything personal relating to this via internal systems.

The logical people to tell are a senior manager in your line management chain, a senior HR person, Data Protection Officer. You really need to notify someone asap.

No like the org chart on Teams, I don’t have access to any internal systems. But I didn’t realise the complaints team came under my director.

Can you go to their line manager?

My hesitation comes from the personal complaint being very personal and not something I’d want to share with my employer from an employment perspective. It’s just about protecting my data frankly. And to be blunt, it’s more “unorthodox” for my employer to have handled it that badly that the regulator had reason to be involved.

I report to the director, their line manager is ridiculously senior ie the public face of the public sector area I work in, attends ministerial matters etc.

I think it would be nuclear going to them. It’s not likely, my personal complaint would end up on their radar regardless of the regulator involvement.

Last time I worked somewhere with a statutory function they had special arrangements in place for staff using the service - do they have anything like that? In terms of administration not special treatment, for privacy reasons.

you could approach your HRBP for advice maybe?

It sounds like a potential conflict of interests. We declare any potential conflicts on a regular basis including for family members and these registers are open in the workplace so colleagues can see. You would not be involved in any decision making, funding etc. for organisations where there may be a potential conflict. You declare and exit the room at the appropriate point in meetings. I hope you are squeaky clean in terms of accessing systems or asking staff to access systems, especially if you work under the same Director who heads up the team dealing with your issue.

@LadyLapsang oh for gods sake, grow up and get lost. I have already said there is no conflict of interest with the issue in question. And that I haven’t accessed any systems. Your pointless fear-mongering is unwanted.

I think I've had a similar type of scenerio. At a minimum your organisation needs to lock your records and they should only be viewed by those who need to do so. In my organisation that would be senior management or service leads. Anyone else has to obtain permission. This is standard policy when you are both staff and a member of the public using their services. Other than that my case also involved a major data breach and the person responsible was disciplined accordingly. You don't have to inform your manager (in my case my line management had to be changed as they were part of the original problem and I later discovered also part of accessing data they shouldn't have) All records of this nature should be kept separate and they have a statutory obligation to do so regardless of how they usually process information.