Ex-civil servant launches a misconduct reporting app after witnessing 'bullying' in Whitehall

A former civil servant has launched a misconduct reporting app after witnessing “bullying and discrimination” in Whitehall.

Neta Meidav, 34, spent several years working as a government adviser on energy and climate change issues.

Now she has secured private investment to develop Vault Platform, which allows employees to log any workplace bullying or sexual harassment claims.

She said: “It is for anything that is hard for people to talk about ... I was working in government for many years, working in Whitehall, and I saw the horrible impact of bullying and discrimination on colleagues.”

The app will store entries with exact time stamps and any accompanying media for decades to support cases. It will allow HR departments to have an independent record of any pattern of claims.

Its “blind network” lets any employee submitting a claim see if others have made allegations, and a “private permission blockchain element in the system” lets networks of companies share a reporting mechanism, showing up any pattern of claims across workplaces.

Ms Meidav, based in Borough, came up with the idea as the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke and the #MeToo movement began to grow. She had also experienced harassment in her first public sector graduate job.

She told the Evening Standard: “Even if I wanted to report that guy today, those text messages are long gone, but we thought maybe technology can help both of these problems, and so the idea was born.

"We realised that even in the most progressive work environment, only 25 per cent of incidents are reported. So what is out there is only the tip of the iceberg. Not much has changed [in terms of reporting mechanisms] since anonymous reporting lines were put in during the 1970s. Our technology can help.”

She added: “I would love Westminster and Whitehall to have this [app].”

A Government spokesman said: “The most recent survey of staff shows incidents of this nature remain rare, but all allegations are taken extremely seriously.

“We are listening to staff and taking action.”