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Outside commitments guidance - Code of Conduct - Conflicts

The Council’s policy on outside commitments is that they must not conflict with your responsibilities as a Council employee, or with the Council’s interests. Conflicts could occur in a range of scenarios, for example:

Conflicts between employers – where a council employee takes a second job and the interests of the two employers’ conflict. An example may be where a Council surveyor takes a job for a private firm which is engaged to purchase a Council property. In this scenario the surveyor would be expected by the Council to get the best price possible for the property, whereas the firm would be expecting to get the cheapest price possible for their client. Thus the surveyor is conflicted.

Time management – this is where an employee’s second commitment prevents them from spending the time required on their Council job. For example, an employee setting up a part time business selling antiques may have to travel round the country looking for antiques to stock their shop with. If this means that the employee is late for work, misses important meetings and is absent without booking leave, then there will be a conflict between the employee’s private interests, getting the business set up, and the council’s interests, the employee doing their job.

Conflicts of principle – this is where the employee’s outside commitment calls into question the council’s key principles. For example, the Council and all employees should be politically neutral in work time and those in politically restricted posts are not permitted to undertake certain activities. If an employee in a politically restricted role volunteered as the secretary for the Scottish National Party branch for example, this would draw into question the employees political neutrality, and by extension that of the council. As a result there would be a conflict between the council key principal of political neutrality and the employee’s decision to work for a political organisation.

Conflicts, as can be seen above, can either be permanent, such as conflicts of principle, or come and go. Those outside interests which will always conflict with the Council must be avoided, and other conflicts managed to ensure that the council’s interests are protected.