National Bullying Helpline and Christine Pratt plunged into further crisis

In my original posting, bullying helpline breaches callers confidentiality, I was not looking at the specifics of the alleged bullying in Downing Street but more at the callers confidentiality that Christine Pratt had breached, and now continues to ignore in her rants.

Well, despite Christine Pratt's protests I obviously wasn't the only one who was unhappy about the breaches in confidentiality and in fact one two three all four Patrons of the National Bulling Helpline have now resigned over the very same issue.

Yesterday morning the first of the NBH Patron's to quit was Professor Cary Cooper, an academic and work-place stress expert, resigned saying that: "I am resigning now on the grounds that I think she [Christine Pratt] breached confidentiality.

"One of the things that is really important for any helpline or any counselling service is to retain confidentiality of the people calling up."

Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe and TV presenter Sarah Cawood followed Cary Cooper and then finally Hillingdon Conservative Councillor Mary O'Connor also resigned – leaving the charity without any patrons - all citing the same reason, the obvious breach of confidentiality.


The National Bullying Helpline website has this stinging attack on the four former Patrons;

"Our Patrons have resigned at a time when we needed them most. It is a shame that not one of them ever visited our charity offices to see how we operate or meet with our Volunteers and Trustee's, despite request."

The comment on the NBH website goes on to also explain that the Helpline has now been suspended;

"Due to the situation at this time we are temporarily suspending our helpline. However, the website is still operational and contains practical, downloadable, documents for those who need it. Competitor anti bullying charities, individuals with an axe to grind and a few others have forced our hand."

"We are currently considering the future of the charity. Christine Pratt is prepared to resign if necessary."

I am shocked and stunned she has not resigned yet.  What does she mean if necessary?
 
The worst aspect of this drama reading the NBH website is the attacks made on other anti bullying charities etc, my message to Christine Pratt is firstly, grow up and then go and clear your desk and do the decent thing and resign.
 
However, you cannot blame anyone else for this mess, it is entirely of your own making.
 
To rub salt into the helplines wounds the charity commission has said it is launching an investigation into the helpline because of complaints it had received in the last 24 hours.

Bullying helpline breaches callers confidentiality

If you bypass the acual issue of whether Gordon Brown did or didn't shout and scream at staff just for one moment, there actually is a much bigger issue at stake - the confidentiality of those that contacted the bullying helpline.

From the BBC website:

She [Christine Pratt] told the BBC: "Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown's office.  "Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office."

I personally believe that Christine Pratt is completely and utterley out of order for confirming this as it now potentially can create an even worse atmosphere for those staff members as everyone will go into work tomorrow thinking, was it you that called the bullying helpline?

If this alleged bullying has indeed taken place, Christine Pratt has therefore provided some very sensitive information such as "Some have downloaded information;" - this will enable an IT expert to check which computers within the specific department have visited that particular website.  Very useful information for a bully.

On Saturday the prime minister told Channel 4 News things were sometimes said "in the heat of the moment" and when he was angry he might "throw the newspapers on the floor or something like that".

As I said at the beginning, I am not going into detail on whether Gordon Brown, or anyone else has or has not bullied anyone within the Cabinet Office, that is for other's to investigate if they see fit.

Now, I have never visited the National Bullying Helpline website before today, but I was a little surprised when I got there to only see quotes from Ann Widdecombe MP (although she is their Patron) and David Cameron.  I do not belive that Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg would not have given a quote if asked, however, have they ever been asked?

So, my initial though then became, is this story more politically motivated than we had perhaps originally thought?

However, back to my main point which is the confidentiality of anyone who calls or complains via the website.

We never share your details with anyone else. All correspondence is confidential.

That is the key message on their website, then their privacy policy states on the contacts us section;

We have a clear privacy policy. We do not share your details with anyone. In a situation where you may wish us to support you in bringing a complaint against your employer we would observe conflict of interest. Where we are asked to mediate we would seek consent from both the employee and the employer to ensure that this approach suited all the parties.

So far Christine Pratt's comments to the BBC seem to contradict both of these statements.  So, I then read the terms and conditions of the National Bullying Helpline to read more.  That is where I then found this;

4 VISITOR MATERIALS AND CONDUCT
4.1 Other than personally identifiable information which is covered by our privacy policy, any material you transmit to the Website shall be considered non-confidential. The Company shall have no obligations with respect to such material and it shall be free to copy, disclose, distribute and incorporate use of such material and all data, images, sounds, text for any purpose.

Is it me or is this statement in their terms and conditions slightly different to their privacy policy?  The privacy policy states "we do not share your details with anyone", but the terms and conditions imply that other than the very personal data they will copy, disclose, distribute and incorporate use of such material etc etc.

In other words, Christine Pratt has not breached the confidentiality because in practice other than actual names and addresses your data is not protected and as Christine Pratt has shown today she is happy to share it with the BBC and any other news organisation if there is a story.

My advice would be never to use this helpline because your data and call is not as protected as you may have thought, and that if you are being bullied already this extra pressure will only make the situation potentially worse for you.

I was bullied as a youngster and to this day cannot tell you why the individual picked on me.  I may have called a helpline such as this if it had existed back then, but imagine how you would feel if by contacting the helpline your details were used in this manner?

I really, really feel for the staff in the Cabinet Office that called or contacted the helpline, they would have thought that the call would have helped their situation, and initially it properly did, but they must be going through hell today and going to work tomorrow will now, because of Christine Pratt be a major, major event.

If, however this story is proven to be politically motivated, then there are much wider repercussions that will be felt.  I do hope I am wrong.