Suspected case of 'phonics test malpractice' picked up by council whistleblowing process
A suspected case of “phonics test malpractice” was picked up by the council whistleblowing process and passed to the Department for Education last year, an HR chief’s report says.
The case was one of five, raised through Shropshire’s “Speaking up about Wrongdoing” system, that was referred to an outside body for investigation in 2019-20.
Another case, sparked by a theft allegation, was passed to the police and two suspected housing benefit fraud matters were handed to the Department for Work and Pensions, according to Workforce and Transformation Director Michele Leith.
Her Review of Whistleblowing, which will be discussed by Shropshire Council’s Audit Committee this week, also gives anonymous details of four further allegations that were dealt with internally and 11 where there was no case found to answer.
Ms Leith writes: “The whistleblowing process provides arrangements to enable employees, elected members, contractors and others to raise concerns about fraud, corruption, adult or child protection, harassment and bullying allegations.
“In 2019-20, there were 20 cases reported under the whistleblowing arrangements for Shropshire Council. Eleven resulted in ‘no case to answer’ and nine resulted in being referred to another agency or service which resulted in ‘not enough evidence to proceed’ or ‘dealt with under another policy’.”
One case, described as “phonics screening test malpractice” was first reported verbally and was subject to a management investigation before being referred to the Standards and Testing Agency, a part of the DfE.
“Disciplinary action to be considered when report received,” the entry in Ms Leith’s report adds.
Two housing benefit cases were investigated by auditors before being passed to the DWP’s Single Fraud Investigation Service, the theft case was “reported to the police” and a case of alleged “sub-letting” in a non-council property was “passed to a third party”. Ms Leith’s report does not tell councillors the outcome of any of these.
Four more allegations of housing benefit fraud were found to have no case to answer after auditors’ investigated.
Whistleblowing is officially referred to as “making a disclosure in the public interest”, and can includes reporting actions that endangers health and safety, environmental damage, breaches of the law and covering up wrongdoing. Details of how to make such reports are available on the council’s website.
