E-government will allow whistleblowing
The Treasury has underscored an assurance to the Public Accounts Committee that moves towards e-government will not hamper whistleblowers.
MPs on the committee noted the assurance from the social security department in their report ‘Government on the Web’ that ‘more electronic government would not make it more difficult for civil servants to whistleblow in confidence if they were concerned about some practice or quality of service delivery’.
The Treasury’s response outlined the rules that apply to civil servants who believe they are being asked to act in a way which would be in breach of the ‘Civil Service Code’ – ‘whether on paper or electronically’.
Details of the appeals procedures set out in the staff handbooks are ‘normally’ made available to staff in both paper and electronic forms.
The Treasury response insisted the government is on course to meet the target set by Prime Minister Tony Blair for putting all services to the citizen available electronically by 2005.
But they admitted the Cabinet Office have revised the definition, so that what counts is whether web-based technology is being used to provide the service to the citizen and ‘the transactional component of an enabled service, such as the provider engaging by telephone with the citizen, do not count.’ Whistleblower accountant wins £293,000