Last week, Big Brother Watch spoke out against an instrusive proposal put before Fenland District councillors which would have allowed council officers to intrude into the personal lives of their employees. The story received widespread coverage across the country and was featured in almost 150 different newspapers.
According to the proposal laid before councillors, employees who are engaged in relationships with other members of staff would have been forced to "declare the relationship to his/her manager in writing" with the information then being "recorded on the personal files of both employees" and shared across the HR department. Failure to comply with the rules would have been treated as a disciplinary offence.
Thankfully, councillors thought better of adopting this policy and unanimously rejected it. Indeed, according to a report by Brian Famer "one councillor labelled the proposal the "bonk and be booted out" policy and said it had come from the "database of daft ideas". Another said publicity about the plan had turned the council into a "laughing stock"".
This is a real victory for common sense, but it's tragic that this bullying council had to be humiliated in the international media before the management conceded defeat. If this story hadn't gone around the world, they'd still be intruding on their staff - they haven't admitted they're wrong, they've just been beaten.
The absurdity of this overbearing snooping is apparently obvious to anyone who doesn't work in local government.
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