‘Extraordinary’: WA government department deletes bullying allegation email

A child protection worker raising allegations of bullying within her workplace has had the email outlining her concerns deleted by the department.

The Child Protection and Family Support staffer sent the email seeking a meeting to address the claims of bullying at a residential group home, where young people live if they cannot be housed by a foster family in Perth. She sent it on March 22 to colleagues and management and detailed her experience of workplace bullying.

The email from the child protection worker outlining bullying claims was deleted by the department. Credit: Greg Newington

The email called for a ‘red flag meeting’, which can be called by staff and children within a house when they feel scared, worried, or angry about something.

A CPFS boss addressed the email two days later saying no such meeting would be held and told staff the original email had been “removed” by Communities’ IT security team, and that disciplinary action would be taken if anyone had a copy of the deleted email.

“If you read the red flag meeting email, you may have noted it contained a large amount of confidential and sensitive information,” the boss wrote.

“Come to see me for a confidential discussion if you have concerns around having received the email, or its content.”

“I find it very concerning that somebody would delete the email.”

Technology expert Ben Aylett

The CPFS boss issued two directives to any employees who received the deleted email and warned them failure to comply may result in a “disciplinary process”.

“If any copies of this email still exists in your inbox (either the original or a forwarded version) the email must be double deleted immediately,” they said.

“Due to the confidential nature of the email, all employees are prohibited from discussing its content in the workplace.”

The boss told employees red flag meetings were short meetings to address critical incidents or to identify possible collective disturbances and focused on solutions rather than problems, therefore no such meeting would take place.

One of the CPFS colleagues who got the email told WAtoday the worker had the right to call the red flag meeting and that all the CPFS recipients of the email outlining bullying claims had access to the confidential information elsewhere so there was no need for it to be deleted.

The colleague said the writer’s email had detailed her claims of being bullied by another worker.

The examples had included information about the children in the residential care home that the claimed bullying had occurred in front of.

The CPFS colleague said staff were surprised by the boss saying the claims weren’t grounds for a red flag meeting, because red flag criteria include staff feeling “scared, worried or angry” about something.

They believed the management just didn’t want any email evidence of the bullying allegations.

The worker said their concern was that if this email had been deleted what else had been wiped from the system, which at times would be required during audits, court cases, and internal/external investigations.

Examples of situations where a Red Flag Meeting may be called are:

• when a member of staff or a child is hurt badly  
• a child starts to run away repeatedly  
• a child is experiencing severe bullying  
• staff and/or child feel scared, worried or angry about something,
• or stories from staff or children make us really worried.

Technology expert Ben Aylett said deleting emails could be done quite easily but it was highly concerning that a government department would do this, with employees able to take the matter to court if they wanted.

“I find it very concerning that somebody would delete the email, and even if it was bullying claims, no matter what the content, to have it deleted and to say nobody can speak about it again raises questions about what might be done in other situations,” he said.

“If there was anyone who wanted to follow up this case or go even further, there are forensic services that will actually go through systems, you can actually dig up the evidence.

“There is a specialist field of digital forensics which will investigate this and have something that is admissible by court.”

Mr Aylett said deleting emails, no matter within a government department or not, was frowned upon within the compliance and cybersecurity world.

“The compliance expectations would be very high [for CPFS workers] because we’re dealing with sensitive information, a pretty volatile environment, and situations,” he said.

“You would want to have an extremely thorough or stringent compliance policy around the handling of information and that extends to things more than just email, including any other internal communication in that department.

“Depending on the type of email system they’re using it would be possible to go back through and audit trails.”

Catherine Stoddart, deputy director general of the department’s governance integrity branch, said claims of bullying were taken seriously but in situations where highly sensitive or confidential information is at risk, or had been inadvertently sent the email could be removed from work systems with the correct approval.

“Communities staff are at times entrusted with sensitive and confidential information,” she said.

“Staff are expected to comply with the requirements of the State Records Act 2000 (WA) which covers obligations regarding safe and ethical document management and protection of sensitive, confidential information.

“In circumstances where highly sensitive or confidential information is at risk or has been inadvertently sent, the relevant communication can be removed with the appropriate authorised approval.”

She said the department encouraged employees to consider grievance resolution within the relevant department area first in the first instance when claims of bullying were involved.

Samantha Maddern, a partner at law firm Mills Oakley who specialises in workplace relations, said while there was “nothing inherently wrong” with an employer removing an email the real question was where the line was drawn.

“Your use of an employer’s IT system means you agree to their rules and requirements and that the content you send and receive on email is the employer’s property … there’s certainly no privacy,” she said.

“It’s quite an unusual step to go and delete it but I’m not sure there’s anything illegal or untoward.”

Ms Maddern questioned how frequently the power of deleting emails was used.

Shadow minister for child protection Nick Goiran said it was “quite extraordinary” and raised the question whether this was done across other departments and circumstances.