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The Dunedin City Council’s policy about whistleblowers is being reviewed.
The protected disclosures policy had been updated to provide contact details about people who could receive such disclosures, the council said.
“Further review is ongoing, including development of a fraud response plan for employees involved in investigations,” the council said in the agenda for this week’s audit, risk and assurance committee meeting.
This would give employees a clear understanding of the process, “and the team is considering introducing a hotline for anonymous reporting, which is a relatively standard offering in large organisations”, the council said.
Updates about the policy were expected to come back before the committee for feedback in September.
Allegations from two whistleblowers were investigated last year.
A council spokesman said at the time an investigation by Deloitte identified “some factual events occurred”, but they were either “not of significant concern or there was a reasonable explanation”.
No financial irregularities were established, the spokesman said.
