07 July 2009

Lisa Greenwood sacking - clarification

The Guardian Technology Blog provides a little more information on the actions that led to Miss Greenwood’s dismissal (see my earlier post below). Yesterday’s Telegraph report indicated that she left a comment about Hazel Blears on Theyworkforyou.com. This actually wasn’t the case.

According to Tom Steinberg, the head of MySociety and who spoke to Lisa, what actually happened was :-

  • Miss Greenwod She used google and ended up on Hazel Blear's page on TheyWorkForYou.com
  • She clicked through from it to Hazel's official site
  • She found the 'contact me' page on the official site and then clicked on the email address, which, using a mailto: tag popped up her work email client.
  • She wrote and sent her fatal email, which was delivered from her DCSF email account, not her Hotmail which she'd normally use.
It was that use of the DCSF email address, not Hotmail, which was the killer. (she wrote to Blears, via email, "You are only sorry that you have been caught. You are a disgrace (including all the other honourable members). Why haven't you been sacked?")

The actual course of events makes Lisa’s actions seem more foolish than I and others originally thought. That said I still think the action of the department was a overreaction.

In summary:

Lisa Greenwood – Foolish, foolish, foolish

DCSF – OTT. OTT, OTT

6 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

I heard about that incident on BBC Int'l Radio. Now I know the whole story.

James Higham said...

She felt strongly and she was letting the woman know that she hadn't got away with it. It was internal and meant to be anonymous.

OK, this was careless and showed a lack of awareness of technical matters. The fact that it was tracked back was more disturbing - the same type of thing that Patricia Dunn, Carly fiorini, Caroline Flint, Jennifer Lynch and others have done. It's a midnset which is fine with being gung ho but the instant there is criticism, there's a vindictive witchhunt for whoever dared criticize.

This is a form of madness and yet these are the people appointed to these positions.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Wimmen...

jams o donnell said...

It's not a story to cover anyone in glory Ren

James, Miss Grenwood was foolish to do this from work. At the end of the day civil servants have to be impartial, or at least to bite therir tongues. This is the same whichecer party is in power (the impartiality AND the tongue biting, I'm sure!)

The disciplinary mechanism and the punishment handed out would not have been controlled by Hazel Blears. This would have been purely an internal matter. THat said I think the attitude taken was far too bullish,

Haha Snoopy!

CherryPie said...

Probably partly to with the fact that civil servants sign agreements not to abuse the internet gateway service.

Steve said...

Hi,

Its not just the civil servant thing though. If I sent hate mail from my work address, (and reading the email it can't be described as much else)I'd be in serious trouble as well.