Whistleblowers, Libel and Blogs

You need to be a brave person to be a whistleblower, particularly in Carmarthenshire County Council. Such was the lady who reported the ill treatment of a vulnerable adult in a council run home, the Ombudsman's report condemned not only the abuse, of course, but also the council's total failure to a) protect the complainant from intimidation and b) investigate the complaint.

The Council were found guilty of gross maladministration.

However, failing to manage the correct procedures, a 'culture of intimidation' and the loss of your job, are not the only obstacles in the way of would-be whistleblowers in this particular council. Council officers can now, as I have previously mentioned, sue for libel with the use of taxpayers money. This effectively means that this insidious sword of damocles will hang over anyone who genuinely wishes to report a senior official (after all they're far more likely to fund a case brought by, for example, a Head of Planning or a Chief Executive rather than one brought by a dinner lady), With UK libel law weighted in favour of the claimant, no legal aid for a defence and costs 140 times higher than the rest of Europe the possibility of facing the High Court rather than the local investigator, may well be enough to secure the silence of those that might blow the whistle. We have been contacted by a number of council employees who have expressed grave concerns about senior officers but felt they could not take these concerns any further due to the intense pressure not to whistleblow.
Suffolk Council spent £200k of taxpayers money on gagging orders in the past 18 months to prevent ex-employees blowing the whistle after their contracts had 'ended' - is this commonplace?
Remember, libel case are often (notoriously) brought by the wealthy (or taxpayer funded) to silence unpleasant truths and no one can twist the truth better than a libel lawyer.

Auditor & Defamation
Talking about being able to sue, my requests to the District Auditor in Carmarthen concerning the ambiguous statements by the legal department over the defamation amendments in the constitution, remain unanswered. I have been told several times over the past three months that it is being looked into and I should have a reply 'within seven days'! I was even told over the phone by the auditor (about 6 weeks ago) that he had requested the relevant information from the council and they [the council] were 'trying to decide whether they wanted me to have it'. Great. I really hope they are not giving me the runaround and are taking my concerns seriously as the ability by council officers to sue for defamation can manifest itself in many ways; not only as a neat way to legally get around the rule that a government body cannot sue for defamation but as a sinister obstacle to whistleblowing.
I strongly believe that the amendments to the constitution regarding defamation were unlawful and go against human rights and case law, and should be immediately removed.


Access to Blogs
On a not unrelated issue, I was wondering what Carmarthenshire council's policy on access to blogs, social networking etc was. This was partly prompted by a Councillor from North Wales who asked his Chief Executive details of access to blogs etc, he of course stated that no one is supposed to be accessing non-related internet content in the workplace; but disturbingly he seemed more concerned with preventing access to blogs critical of the council.
The once well defined line drawn between entertainment and information is blurring rapidly and indeed Carmarthenshie Council itself has it's own Facebook page and is about start it's own internet TV station. Somebody asked Carmarthenshire council through a FOI request their policy regarding access to political party websites, and the rather useless answer was "In response, the filtering software used by the Council does not prevent access to any websites because they belong to political parties. However, should any content be placed on a site which is, for example, of an offensive or obscene nature, the software could pick this up and block access to the site."
I was thinking particularly about how access to sites and blogs critical of the council would be controlled in Carmarthenshire Council, and if there are any sites - or blogs- which are blocked, by whom and on what basis that decision was made. Or would they just blame the software?

I could be wrong and Carmarthenshire council may be leading the way in unfettered free speech but speaking from personal experience I very much doubt it. I shall just have to ask.