Reported case for 2017 to 2018, second quarter
A protected disclosure was received under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, alleging wrongdoing pursuant to Subsection 8(e) of the Act, in that the employee:
1. Did not carry out her duty in accordance to departmental policy and directives by not securing her passwords and putting them on shared drive for her staff to use
It was found that the employee shared her passwords to various departmental electronic systems with her administrative staff, and placed them on a shared drive for an extended period of time, accessible to all employees within the work unit. Furthermore, a practice established by the employee for several years was to delegate requests for leave, overtime, travel, and approval of expenses to her administrative assistant (s), their back-ups, and occasionally to a student, thus not respecting the principles of delegation of authority under the Financial Administration Act, and in particular the Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) Instrument on Human Resources Delegation.
2. Did not treat some of her employees under her management with respect
It was found that the employee was verbally abusive, intimidating, and would often make inappropriate comments at the office.
3. Used her official role as manager to provide advantage to herself
It was found that the employee did not keep regular work hours, often came to work late, or purported to work from home. She also caused unnecessary after hours work for her staff to have routine work completed. The employee did not always enter her leave in the Department’s leave system.
On occasion, the employee would also conduct work related to her small privately owned business on departmental time.
4. Did not manage public money under her management efficiently
As a result of not keeping fixed hours and arriving to work late, or not being present, this led to overtime being worked by her support staff unnecessarily, and overtime costs incurred by the department. A staff member was asked by the employee to drive her to meetings using her personal vehicle without being allowed travel costs.
Conclusion
The departmental investigation process found that the four allegations were deemed to be founded, and to constitute serious breaches of the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector and the PSPC Code of Conduct.
A process to identify corrective actions is currently underway, and has yet to be finalized.
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