National Bullying Helpline patron quits over No 10 row

National Bullying Helpline patron quits over No 10 row

Monday, 22 February 2010

A patron of an anti-bullying charity has resigned, saying its founder breached confidentiality by claiming Downing Street staff used its helpline.


Christine Pratt has defended her decision to speak out

Prof Cary Cooper, an expert on workplace stress, said on Monday he had quit the National Bullying Helpline.

Its head, Christine Pratt, had told the BBC of its dealings with No 10 staff after Business Secretary Lord Mandelson denied Gordon Brown bullied people.

It came amid reports the civil service head warned the PM about his behaviour.

Prof Cooper said he had informed Ms Pratt of his decision by email.

"One of the things that is really important for any helpline or any counselling service is to retain confidentiality of the people calling up," he said.

Ms Pratt, chief executive of the National Bullying Helpline, has also been criticised by another charity, Bullying UK, which said it was "horrified" she had "all but identified" one caller in media interviews.

"It's hard to imagine a more serious breach of confidentiality," it said on its website.

It said it was complaining about the helpline to the Charity Commission, having received emails from people who thought Bullying UK was responsible, and called on Mrs Pratt to consider her position.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8527881.stm

Whilst any form of bulling is totally unacceptable, I agree that this woman shouldnt have gone public with the government employees complaints. Its a charity they're running, it should be highly confidential and unless the employees concerned had given her their permission to speak out she should have respected their privacy.

Had the employees wished to take matters any further they have the right to go through the proper channels to make formal complaints, you wouldnt expect to ring the Samaritans and have your story splashed all over the BBC News.

Having said all this, if GB has really grabbed someone by the lapels and pushed him he should be dealt with as any other person would be. Sacked for gross misconduct on the spot.

Yes I agree with you Hmum in normal circumstancies, but what if they have been bullied to the extent that their fear stopped them going any further with this atleast it has brought it to our (the public who put Gordon and his croonies in there positions) attention, something they would have prayed would happen, I bet they feared for their lives if they spoke out, Brown is there to run OUR Country on our behalf it is not HIS Country to run it for HIS personal gain. yes this prof has spit his dummy out lets see if any of these MP's who it refers to speak out how naughty Christine has been, I think not.

Imo there is an awful lot we will never know about GB (when he is kicked out we may get to find out some of it from our pathetic spinless papers) and I bet there is loads of skeletons in GB cupboad, I watched that interview with Piers the other night, he came over very badly, a right fawny b4stard,I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit, the problem Brown has got he forgets he will not always be in power, and one day he will be stab in the back!!

I think that the attitude of the government and people in power about this matter have spoken volumes.

In common with other people who have have spoken publically about 'inconvenient' things, this lady has now been smeared, villified and hounded out of her post.

Another form of bullying, imo.

Its not the lady who spoke out who's quit Alfiefinn, its a man, a patron of the charity who disagree's with her identifying people who rang a confidential helpline.

I do know what your saying BB, I'm looking at it from the Employee's point of view though. I would imagine they are easily identifyable within Downing Street from the information she's given, and I just think she's made their positions there untenable now anyway so they will have to resign whatever happens. Had they have wanted publicity, i would imagine at any time they could have gone to a paper and sold the story themselves, but the fact they chose to ring a charity for advice probably means they didnt want it taking any further.

I'm not supporting GB at all, I think he's a vile creature, I'm supporting the employees rights to privacy

Sorry Harvesmom, it's Monday and I'm feeling fuzzy

But I wouldn't like anyone to throw a mobile phone at me. We once had a case at a former workplace , where one young girl in another department was bullied by the head of department's assistant. She was afraid to complain to anyone officially because she felt no-one would back up her claims, because they were too scared. In the end, her dad had a word.

HMom

It will be very sad if thay have to give up their jobs, but again people like GB will not lose sleep over this, what it will do is hopefully stop him been so underhand and realise that people do have a way of speaking out about HIM.
I think back to when that Cabinet Minister who tried to get Gordon out recently, for got his name!!, he said that a couple of days befor he had a lot of support from other Cabinet Ministers and MP's egging him on, then all of a sudden the poor guy was on his own they all did a uturn, why! imo I bet Brown got wind of it and either threatned them or promised them the "best" jobs, the very good thing here is that we will never know who the yellow bellies are because Brown is going to be kicked out of office soon, so the MP's he has promised things to, to keep quiet will never get their new jobs .

I must admit that I was uncomfortable when I heard these allegations. Politics is a filthy game, and it was obvious that these creatures would rally to protect their leader.

Its clear to me that whoever made these complaints will have been identified by now, and the bullying that they'll be experiencing will be far worse than anything that they've previously experienced.

Sadly, the only way to deal with these creatures is to expose them in the light. If The Hare was running the country I can assure he he'd be throwing mobile phones, banging tables, and shouting at these civil service creatures and their silly games, but you dont shout and throw phones at secretaries, and junior members of staff, if theyre incompetant, you fire them.

It shouldnt realy come as a surprise, Brown has always been a control freak, decent people dont enter politics, and to reach the top in that sort of environment takes a complete lack of morals and integrity. I'll be amazed if far worse isnt revealed before were through.

Well said The Hare!!!, its alright while Browns on the up its when he's coming down will be the start of his problem, I hope


Control freak or not nobody gets away with been an nasty underhand bastard for ever, there have been bigger people than him brought down, alot bigger.

One things for sure, if anyone lobbed a phone at me they'd get one lobbed straight back, Prime Minister or not.

Thats what I was saying Hare, a bad situation has been made worse for the employees concerned, although the one thing to come out of it is that we've all found out about it now. Wont help those poor people keep their jobs though.

It needed to be exposed, but in my opinion not by this woman.

gordon browns a big bully boy.......


bullys tend to be insecure people who may well have been bullied themselves as a child,i think brown fits both those criteria.
Silly ms pratt surely has an ulterior motive for blabbing,see her 'charity' website has a link to her hubbys employment law firm..........

Harvesmom wrote: It needed to be exposed, but in my opinion not by this woman.

Its a difficult situation. If and when Gordon Brown loses power, you have hundreds of MP's, staff, researchers, spin doctors, party officials etc who'll also lose their livelihoods, their power, and the opportunities to engage in corruption etc. These creatures will do ANYTHING to protect their position.

24 hours after the complaints where made, we already have skeletons are coming out of the cupboard, every single labour MP, press secretary, and spin doctor is twisting the knife. Mrs Pratt has become the story, her charity is alledgedly dodgy, under investigation by the charaties commission, that the attack is politically motivated, that her annual returns are late, questions are being asked as to where the money goes ?, accusations and insinuations that the charity is a marketing tool for her own consultancy services, the fact that she sued her previous employer for bullying, then went back for a further 400K in damages after they broke a confidentuiality agreement.

At the very least, whistle blowing in the public sector is going to lose you your job and all future prospects. If you have senior enough position, you'll be arrested, charged and imprisoned. I have friends who have actually been threatened with charges of treason, I have friends who have been the recipiants of death threats. Lets not forget, even a tory MP was threatened with a charge of treason last year. Of course, we have David Kelly.

Unfortunately noone on the inside is likely to bring these sorts of issues to anyones attention. If Browns just a grumpy bad tempered bastard and an appalling boss, thats one thing, but if he's genuinely mentally ill, as many suspect, thats an entirely different kettle of fish. That's serious, and it needs to be addressed.

One of the big problems that we face is that we have a culture of political correctness gone mad, where noone actually knows anymore what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Organisational cultures clearly differ. A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting with a private sector client, during that meeting, a chair was thrown through a window, six or seven people finally settled their differences in punch up in the car park, and the local police where called and arrests where made. This situation was later described in the minutes as "a full and frank exchange of views". A couple of days later, everything was back to normal, as if the incident had never happened. The event was considerede quite extreme, but it wasnt the first time that had happened, and I suspect it wasnt the last.

In contast, a couple of weeks later, I attended a meeting with a public sector client, during which I questioned the validity of financial data provided by the director of finance from a large NHS trust hospital. My exact comment was "I'm not sure that these figures are correct, they dont quite seam to add up". The figures did not add up, and the magnitude of the error was such that it was immediately apparent that there was a serious problem.

As a consequence of that remark, a formal complaint was lodged by the hospitals chief executive, as they objected to me questioning a member of staffs professional competance. The individual concerned (an unqualified accountant on a 6 figure salary and responsible for a 150 million a year budget), was absent from work for months following the meeting on the grounds that he was suffering from stress caused by the event.

I dont think its acceptable to throw chairs through windows, but then again, I dont think its acceptable for professionals to object when someone politely points out basic fundemental errors. Whilst I can probably identify extremes, I honestly dont know where the line should be drawn, and suspect others dont either. Thats why allegations of this nature are so complicated.

Its ironic really because it people just like Gordon Brown who are responsible for the crazy political correctness, where pointing out basic errors leads to accusations of discrimination and bullying, where you have to employ completely unsuitable candidates to positions of responsibility simply to eliminate potential accusations of discrimination against the unqualified. Still its nice to see him being hung by his own petard.