Express & Star comment: You cannot spy on your own workers
Hiring private investigators to spy on its own staff strikes us as a bizarre move for Dudley Council on several levels.
More than £16,000 has been spent by the authority in the last five years in a bid to find out if workers have been up to no good.
For a start the move seems rather flippant. Surely if the suspicions were of a genuinely serious nature then the police should have been informed in the first instance?
Bringing in external investigators instead raises the question as to how significant the council's concerns were.
Dudley Council would not confirm the details of any of the 43 investigations it has launched that required the use of private detectives.
It would only say it had dealt with allegations that were 'serious and complex' and involved suspected 'fraudulent conduct'.
Yet 60 per cent of the investigations found no evidence to support the original allegations.
This equates to more than £9,000 spent on fees to snoop on staff that had done nothing wrong according to the private-eyes hired by the council.
We are not talking about huge financial figures here.
But at a time when the council is coming to terms with cuts to services and jobs in the midst of a period of great austerity, then every penny counts.
The rights of Dudley Council workers should also be considered here. Union bosses said they were concerned that private investigators had been brought in. We can understand why.
A working climate where your every move can be scrutinised by a private investigator can't be a nice experience for anyone.
Dudley Council is also something of a rarity in that staff have been under the microscope on every occasion it has employed external investigators.
Only one third of councils in the country have used private investigators, with the majority of investigations launched against members of the public.
Dudley Council has clearly taken a different route.
The council also tells us they bring in professional services when a case has to be investigated as a matter of urgency.
We fully understand that every local authority has a duty to protect public funds and investigate thoroughly any allegations of malpractice.
Dudley Council would no doubt argue that at times employing the services of private detectives brings the best hope of a swift outcome.
But it is questionable whether this marks a sensible and ethical use of public funds.
