Comments on: Cambridgeshire Council Blogging Policy

By: Phil Bradshaw

Phil Bradshaw — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:22:13 +0000

The other strange inclusion in the policy which no-one has commented on is the prohibition on links from an employee’s blog to the Council website. This does not seem to be a Council website policy – unlike some dinosaur sites – so I wonder what the thinking was. Surely it should be encouraged – to give a balanced view – not discouraged and is the reasonable other side of the coin to not attributing personal views as being those of the Council.

By: paul canning

paul canning — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:02:09 +0000

FYI. Another comment thread on this here http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2009/08/22/local-council-blogging-policy-and-self-censorship/#comments

Containing the thought that ‘boundaries will be set by count cases’!

By: Karl Limpert

Karl Limpert — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:52:08 +0000

Unfortunately for employees, disciplinary procedures are & always will be deliberately vague – it’s absolutely impossible to even imagine some of the incidents that do arise as a disciplinary matter.

The ACAS Code of Practice (employers are expected to take this into account when forming & going through a disciplinary process) makes clear that policies should give an idea of the types of conduct that may be minor, serious, or gross misconduct. The final assessment will always rest with managers, but if the employee could not reasonably recognise that their conduct was inappropriate, a warning & necessary training should follow.

By: Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:07:05 +0000

I would be very worried if councils tried to stop elected members from criticising their councils.

This policy states it “applies to all Council employees and Members” yet its provisions appear to refer only to employees.

Is the reference to “Members” in the policy a mistake?

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:20:08 +0000

>the Council would be quite within their rights to take disciplinary action even had they not mentioned them in the blogging policy (and indeed the employee may have more significant issues to deal with

I have some sympathy with the difficulty of framing a policy, for example the more specific dos and dont’s that are listed, the more likely that things which are *not* listed will be defined by a Tribunal to be acceptable for that reason.

I think that there are some problem areas – for example, if an employee criticises safeguarding for being the total disaster many people think it is going to turn into, will that be construed as bringing the council, with their legal duty to use the system and provide informal information for the database, into disrepute?

By: Council blogging policy and self-censorship — LocalGovCamp

Council blogging policy and self-censorship — LocalGovCamp — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:55:44 +0000

[...] Pickard has a great post about policy on council staff blogging, which is sparked by Cambridgeshire making their Social Network and Blogging Policy (PDF) publicly [...]

By: Local council blogging policy and self-censorship | The Wardman Wire

Local council blogging policy and self-censorship | The Wardman Wire — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:51:17 +0000

[...] Pickard has a great post about policy on council staff blogging, which is sparked by Cambridgeshire making their Social Network and Blogging Policy (PDF) publicly [...]

By: paul canning

paul canning — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:52:46 +0000

Forgot to mention that what initiated my interest was a manager commenting negatively about my posting comments on a local bulletin board. I was told this had been ‘noticed’ and I ‘had to be careful’. Then I was referred to the ‘code of conduct’ – after I asked what ‘careful’ meant.

So I stopped posting comments …

By: paul canning

paul canning — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:50:04 +0000

I completely agree with the point about hazy statements on what cannot be said. Clear examples of what is OK and what is not are needed.

I found where I used to work that written policy, which appeared to relate entirely to whether you could complain about the council in a letter to the local newspaper, could easily be read as saying you couldn’t complain about the state of the flowerbeds.

This had a chilling effect on me because I could see how a manager could use it to threaten anyone who lived in the town and took an interest in local affairs they didn’t approve of. Council workers are not civil servants who agree to be ‘non-political’ when they sign up.

In practice some staff were involved in ‘political’ areas locally where clashes with the council happened and their manager’s were OK but because the policy was so vague, or because it was assumed they shouldn’t, I’m certain that others weren’t. And as almost any civic activity relates to the council in some way I’m sure it would put people off getting involved locally.

It didn’t help that most staff didn’t actually live in the city.

I did point out the problem with managers, the union and even a councilor but none of them understood it *as a problem so as far as I know this vague ‘code of conduct’ still exists.