‘Major shift’ in number of council staff making formal harassment, bullying complaints, says CEO

Toowoomba Regional Council’s CEO Brian Pidgeon says there has significant increase in the number of staff making formal complaints about bullying and harassment.

GENERIC IMAGE: A generic image of an office worker being bullied.

There has been a “major shift” in the number of people coming forward to make formal reports of bullying and harassment at Toowoomba Regional Council since the “deeply concerning” and “unacceptable” results of a recent staff survey.

The survey found that out of nearly 40 cases of sexual harassment and more than 320 bullying incidents in the 12 months to November last year, only three per cent of matters were actually reported.

Council CEO Brian Pidgeon said most of the new cases of bullying and harassment were being investigated independently.

“There has been a major shift in the amount of people who have actually been coming forward in relation to making allegations of bullying and harassment in the organisation,” Mr Pidgeon said.

“That’s a good sign to see that people are coming forward and doing that.

“I’ve actually had four or five approaches to myself directly, as have general managers, which is a good sign.”

Mr Pidgeon’s comments came after questions in yesterday’s finance and business strategy committee meeting from councillor Rebecca Vonhoff. Ms Vonhoff queried how the council’s key performance indicator reporting mechanisms could warrant giving “green ticks” to items when “by your own admission here we talk about the staff survey having been a negative and (the culture) going backwards”.

Mr Pidgeon said the green ticks related to achieving milestones.

“The measure of that would be that the (2020/21) survey was conducted and then there’s further development of strategies commencing,” he said.

Mr Pidgeon said the council was also working with its staff to see if there were other initiatives it could put in place to improve culture.

The council voted in March to hire independent consultants to investigate the results of 2018 and 2020 staff surveys and review strategies to combat bullying and harassment.