10% of Holyrood staff 'hit by workplace bullying'

ONE in ten workers at the Scottish Parliament claims to have been bullied or harassed and one in six feels inadequately trained, MSPs heard yesterday.

The figures were taken from an audit of staff presented to the parliament's equal opportunities committee.

The Scottish Parliament's corporate body, which carried out the survey, said more "pro-active steps" had to be taken to cut the number of people claiming to be harassed.

Preliminary findings from the internal audit of 472 staff revealed the proportion of people being bullied had fallen from 13.6 per cent in the previous audit in 2004 to 10.6 per cent in the current one.

Aneela McKenna, Holyrood's equalities manager, said: "We still have to take proactive steps to ensure we are preventing bullying and harassment in the workplace."

However, there was disappointment a scheme introduced in 2004 had not had more success in reducing the number of people bullied.

The programme trained staff to give confidential support to bullied workers and look into complaints against MSPs or other employees. So far there has been only one formal complaint of bullying.