Misconduct and scope of the investigation

[Presonus]

Just wondering if someone can help me demystify the subject of the scope of an investigation.

When suspected of misconduct, I am aware that an employee may or may not be suspended to allow for an investigation to take place. Obviously, this investigation may turn up other things that need justifying or explaining and this can be reasonable.

However is there any kind of expected scope or limit to this?

The reason I ask is, I am in this situation and I had a very odd progress update message from my manager saying as part of my investigation they nearly added a new allegation, but he stepped in and stopped it because the new allegation of misconduct was actually minor thing that was actually a business as usual part of my role. My manager actually had to explain to the investigator that this activity is normal for my role, and totally authorised.

Furthermore the new allegation has absolutely nothing in relation to the allegations for which I'm being investigated, and as a result its transpired my entire digital work history as far back as logs allow is being audited, and any minor wrong doing is being passed to my manager to see if it can support a case of gross misconduct. The manager laughed this off as it's like I say, an act I do every day as well as most of my team.

This feels to me more like building a case, not proving the merits of an allegation?

Is this broad a scope normal? ACAS were really vague on it.

I appreciate my own question is vague i've tried not to give too many details for ID reasons - thanks though!

[theberenger]

...any minor wrong doing is being passed to my manager to see if it can support a case of gross misconduct.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be admitting here that you have, in fact, been involved in what you would term 'minor wrongdoing'. That being the case, your complaint is that you don't think an investigation into allegations of more serious wrongdoing should encompass the other things that you appear to freely admit you've been involved in?

Why on earth not? Gross Misconduct doesn't need to be a single event, it can be the result of a cumulative series of events which, taken together, meet a threshold your employer considers Gross Misconduct. In fact, the more you're found to have been involved in (for want of a better expression), the more confident I would imagine your employer will feel in taking action.

[Presonus]

Not a problem I'll correct you.

There is no admission, or indeed knowledge of wrongdoing on my part, but - and I don't want to state too much in a public capacity, what has become evident is that the company is doing a full audit on my activity. This has stalled the investigation because my manager has found out that I've been accused of further seperate acts of misconduct that are part of the normal routine part of my job, but my manager has had to actively step in and stop these being added as formal allegations because management above him wanted them adding. These further allegations relate to me holding and acceessing sensitive information - for which is required for my role.

The question I have is, and it might have no clearcut answer, but is there any kind of guidance in what an investigation should include when investigating a specific conduct, because this suggests in my case at least that someone with no idea of what my role remit is is just compiling a list of anything that can be thrown, and whilst the original allegation will be challenged, the investigation at the moment doesn't seem to be finding the facts about, rather just a dumpster dive to dig up anything that be dug up.

The risk here is I'm going to have to defend myself against a list of irrelevent allegations to the core issue, it's a bit like being accused of theft from the workplace but when you go into the hearing you get told you forgot to put your gear away six months ago, and it was now misconduct.

[Presonus]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be admitting here that you have, in fact, been involved in what you would term 'minor wrongdoing'. That being the case, your complaint is that you don't think an investigation into allegations of more serious wrongdoing should encompass the other things that you appear to freely admit you've been involved in?

Why on earth not? Gross Misconduct doesn't need to be a single event, it can be the result of a cumulative series of events which, taken together, meet a threshold your employer considers Gross Misconduct. In fact, the more you're found to have been involved in (for want of a better expression), the more confident I would imagine your employer will feel in taking action.

No worries, happy to correct.

It's a fairly complex situation, but I do not beleive I have done anything wrong and intend to challenge the allegation given to me initially. But what has happened since as part of the investigation, and this has currently stalled the process, is the investigator attempted to add a number of allegations to what is going to be asked to be justified at the disciplinary. These have caused some concern my side because a) they are not the sort of activities that would be seen when collecting evidence for the allegations raised b) the new allegations are not actually against any known policy and c) the new allegation is for undertaking actions that are actually core responsibilities of my role, though I've been told they want to push it through. I suspect the investigator does not know what my job actually is.

It will be easy enough to challenge (presuming the process is fair?) but I was just interested in whether there was any guidance regarding the scope of investigations and whether they can be broader and pull back irrelevencies than an allegation merits to the point where it actualy starts to do harm. As funny as it may be, I don't really have much appetite at this stressful time to explain to a hearing that yeah, the reason for having sensitive data on my PC at the time of suspension, was because my job involves handling that sensitive data as that is basically what I do full time all day every day.

It may be that an employer can raise any issues they like in order to support misconduct, even if it's a scattergun affair - but I would have thought there would be some guidance on this as it would allow for investigations to be taken in a bad faith or malicious nature (i.e use an allegation to justify a search for anything whatsoever that could be used to acheive a disciplinary objective)

[ULA]

An investigation usual commences because of an allegation of misconduct or gross misconduct and can result in suspension particularly in the case of a gross misconduct allegation..

It may happen that during the course of that investigation other things "come to light" which may or may not be considered a misconduct or gross misconduct issue and may then form part of the initial investigation. It would then be up to the investigator to consider whether these form part of any disciplinary action that might be taken. However these would need to be set out with any evidence at the time you might be asked to attend a disciplinary hearing.

[Presonus]

Thanks ULA that's helpful and in line with research I've conducted with regards to disciplinary procedures and policies I've been given. *note - I am NOT informed in this area hence being here*

[ULA]

You are welcome and anything else we can do to advise as you go through this process, then please just come back to this thread.