NINE employees at Suffolk County Council have been sacked in the past two years for gross misconduct including assault and fraud, it can be revealed today.A further 11 staff resigned their posts as a result of in-house investigations.
NINE employees at Endeavour House have been sacked in the past two years for gross misconduct including assault and fraud, it can be revealed today.
A further 11 staff at Suffolk County Council resigned their posts as a result of in-house investigations.
The figures, released following a request by The Evening Star under the Freedom of Information Act, show that one member of staff was sacked and a further two resigned following probes into alleged assaults.
Suffolk County Council was unable to say whether the assaults in question were committed on fellow members of staff or customers at Endeavour House.
The most dismissals (five) came for professional misconduct, which includes drinking on duty, making malicious allegations, sleeping on duty or mistreating customers.
A further three members of staff resigned following investigations into professional misconduct.
One member of staff was fired for theft of council property and a further two employees were given the boot for fraud - falsifying council records.
The council said that for any thefts under the value of £20 police were not involved.
Today, a county council spokesman argued that with 10,000 employees on its books, the figures should be looked at in context.
The spokesman said: “We have a detailed formal procedure to deal with all conduct and capability issues.
“This means we carry out a full investigation when we have concerns so that these can be robustly dealt with and so that all sides have the opportunity to put their case.
“We take all allegations of gross misconduct very seriously, so that we protect the county council, our customers and our staff.
“Thankfully these most serious cases are rare, as these figures show.
“We have around 10,000 staff (excluding staff in schools, where different procedures apply), and so this represents just 0.1 per cent of our staff employed, over a two-year period.”
The figures in full:
Resigned Dismissed
Fraud 4 2
Theft 2 1
Assault 2 1
Professional Misconduct 3 5
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