What on Earth: Greenwich Council's (ab)use of employees' personal data

Just read this article from Dizzy that contains a leaked internal communication from Greenwich Council. The communication states the intention that the Council intends to cross check the payroll records of its employees against any outstanding rent/council tax fine arrears of borough residents and thereby force employees in arrears with the Council to make arrangements to clear their arrears. On the assumption that this is a true and recent development, I submit the following thoughts:

Now on the one hand as a taxpayer it's commendable that the Council is making an effort to secure what it is legally entitled to, and that it could potentially assist those people who fall into the category of being a council employee who lives in the borough who's in arrears from getting into even greater financial difficulty (because it could be assumed that the Council would be chasing them anyway through regular means). It also shows an attempt to get one hand of the organisation working with the other.

BUT, and this is a massive but - what on earth are they thinking? Sanctioning such heavy handed and reputationally distasteful action cannot be in the organisation's best interests. If large powerful private sector companies like Tescos, Barclays or Aviva were found to be cross checking their staff payroll information against customers who were defaulting on their mortgage payments, they would quickly become reputed as underhand, immoral pariahs of the high street. Just because we have no alternative organisation to pay our Council tax to does not mean that the Council waives its responsibility of service and professionalism to its stakeholders - of which its staff are a part. Any modern public servant (of which I would like to think I am one) should know that offering the highest standards of customer service is especially important for that very reason.

From a human resource management perspective too, it's at best a thick skinned and at worst a professionally counterproductive action to take. Maintaining cordial employee relations is something that every good employer should aspire to. This should include fairness across the board in an employer's treatment of its employees, a duty of care of confidentiality and fair use of personal and sensitive information and a professional desire to promote and/or safeguard the organisation's reputation as a good employer.

Whilst the means by which the Council are going about notifying and checking this information is not illegal from a data protection point of view, it is not something I would expect an effective, caring and ethical employer to do. Leaving aside the observation that it is the responsibility of the receivables departments to robustly chase outstanding payments, the Council are effectively treating employees who currently live within the borough differently from those employees who may have moved out of the borough, but are still in arrears or employees with arrears with other local authorities. This I would suggest is sufficient grounds to raise a grievance over unfair treatment and harassment by the employer. And even if this is found not to be the case, the risks to the employer for lost time, money and again reputation through grievances, conciliation costs (ie-compromise agreements), ultimately tribunals and most importantly good employee-employer relations should be sufficiently high that a sensible employer would not contemplate taking such heavy handed action.

The other realistic possibility that this action may cause is increased absenteeism through stress - whether real or contrived, it is quite plausible that the knowledge that your debtor (who also happens to be the giver of bread that your livelihood depends on) intends to fashion an even bigger stick to beat you with (because of course the Council will already chase arrears through its relevant agencies anyway) certainly isn't going to make you feel any better about your financial worries. The best/worst line of the piece in my opinion is "if you have not already have an agreed payment plan with the Council, you can contact us immediately..." It sounds like a Stalinist fig leaf to allow the miscreant the dignity to write their own confession.

In conclusion then, Greenwich Council's action cannot be justified in its stated terms of ensuring it collects its revenue effectively to ensure it can maintain services. The costs incurred from damage to reputation and liabilities from unfair treatment claims and absenteeism, not to mention the time it would take to mediate these problems would be higher in both financial, human and reputational cost than the gains it would bring. And with the tone and approach the letter has taken, nor can they reasonably claim to be acting in their employees best interests.

Comments are welcome.