Acts of Founded Wrongdoing
Gross misconduct - Multiple Breaches.
A protected disclosure was received under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, alleging wrongdoing pursuant to Subsection 8(e) of the act, in that the employee:
- Did not carry out his/her duty in accordance to departmental policy and directives by not securing his/her passwords and putting them on shared drive for his/her staff to use.
It was found that the employee shared his/her passwords to various departmental electronic systems with his/her administrative staff, and placed them on a shared drive for an extended period of time, accessible to all employees within the work unit. Furthermore, a practice established by the employee for several years was to delegate requests for leave, overtime, travel, and approval of expenses to his/her administrative assistant(s), their back-ups, and occasionally to a student, thus not respecting the principles of delegation of authority under the Financial Administration Act, and in particular the Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) Instrument on Human Resources Delegation.
- Did not treat some of hisher employees under their management with respect.
It was found that the employee was verbally abusive, intimidating, and would often make inappropriate comments at the office.
- Used their official role as manager to provide advantage to himself/herself.
It was found that the employee did not keep regular work hours, often came to work late, or purported to work from home. They also caused unnecessary after hours work for their staff to have routine work completed. The employee did not always enter his/her leave in the Department's leave system.
On occasion, the employee would also conduct work related to his/her small privately owned business on departmental time.
- Did not manage public money under his/her management efficiently.
As a result of not keeping fixed hours and arriving to work late, or not being present, this led to overtime being worked by their support staff unnecessarily, and overtime costs incurred by the department. A staff member was asked by the employee to drive him/her to meetings using his/her personal vehicle without being allowed travel costs.
Conclusion:
The departmental investigation process found that the four allegations were deemed to be founded, and to constitute serious breaches of the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector and the PSPC Code of Conduct.
The individual no longer works for PSPC.