Complaints over Lancashire police 'bullying' (From Chorley Citizen)

Complaints over Lancashire police 'bullying'

10:32am Monday 1st March 2010 in

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A THIRD of all complaints lodged by Lancashire police employees about their colleagues are for bullying or inappropriate behaviour.

A report set to go before the Lancashire Police Authority on Wednesday shows there were 22 grievances lodged by police or staff in the last nine months.

Of those, 16 have since been resolved and one has been withdrawn. There are five which remain unresolved.

At a previous meeting, Ashley Judd, head of human resources at Lancashire Constabulary, responded to authority members’ concerns about the seven bullying grievances.

He explained that grievances were an ‘opportunity for employees to air their issues of concern to management’.

The rest of complaints were to do with management decisions.

The report also said: “Many of the grievances arose from a manager making a decision that an employee did not like and there would not always be a happy ending to these issues.”

Mr Judd said the number was very small for an organisation the size of the force, but that any patterns or recurring issues were closely scrutinised.

The report stated: “Members were not surprised that the number of grievances had increased as the constabulary moved closer to restructuring and it was possible that the number would increase rather than decrease as time went on.”

Twelve of the complainants were men, 10 were women while 13 were officers and nine were staff.