Blears sackee nothing to do with TheyWorkForYou

Civil servant reveals paper-less trail of doom

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 7th July 2009 08:59 GMT

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The civil servant sacked for being slightly rude about Hazel Blears did not post any comment on TheyWorkForYou: she only used the site to find Blears' personal website.

Lisa Greenwood used Google to find a contact for Hazel Blears. This took her to Hazel Blears' page on TheyWorkForYou, and from there she clicked through to Blears' official site. Once on that site, she clicked on a "contact me" button, which generated a mail from her work email account. She then wrote the message which got her sacked.

In a posting to the MySociety public list last night, Tom Steinberg reproduced an email from Greenwood:

"Dear Tom,
I googled Hazel Blears and found the website 'they work for you' and it said to contact Hazel Blears click on the following link http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/hazel_blears/salford I then clicked on her personal webpage that said 'contact me'. You will have to contact the DCFS for them to explain their interception.

Many thanks

Lisa Greenwood"

After this, Greenwood's boss presumably took over to pursue disciplinary action. The civil service code is strict on non-political use of work email or other facilities. And calling Hazel Blears "a disgrace" could be construed as a political statement. ®

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