Just been looking at the fascinating civil service “people survey”, which asked 340,000 workers whether they had been bullied.
Around 7 per cent of Cabinet Office staff said they had “personally experienced bullying or harassment at work”. No breakdown of how many of them were working in Downing Street. But the self-described victims of bullying do say that “managers” in the organisation are most likely to be responsible.
This is actually much better than other departments in Whitehall. The median across the civil service is 10 per cent, which is nothing to be proud of. And at the Foreign Office, an amazing 16 per cent of staff reported being bullied last year.
One thing to bear in mind is that reported bullying tends to correspond with how active an organisation is at tackling poor performance — something most managers in Whitehall are loathe to do. In the cabinet office survey, only 42 per cent believe that “poor performance is dealt with effectively in my team”.
One final thought. This survey is certainly not a vote of confidence in the top team. Just 28 per cent through the board “has a clear vision for the future of the Cabinet Office”.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey