Now that it is clear that reports of undesirable behavior can also be whistleblower reports, we have started collecting news stories about undesirable behavior. There are quite a few and we don’t even claim to be complete. The question arises: what is going on in working Holland? Is there more unwanted behavior than before? Is it coming out sooner? Is it less tolerated? Could the Whistleblower Protection Act have anything to do with that? An anthology based on a number of sectors.
The government
According to the House of Whistleblowers, the healthcare sector clearly dominated the number of requests for advice to the House in 2023. Staff shortages presumably play a role in this. With the exception of the whistleblower at the Sint Anna Hospital in Geldrop, to our knowledge not much of this has been in the news. However, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) itself did make bad news. An investigation by the FD in February revealed an unprofessional, toxic work environment and undesirable behavior at three VWS boards. However, according to a survey commissioned by the Ministry itself, 82% of employees at the Ministry feel safe. Could those other 18% sometimes work at the boards the FD surveyed?
In June, union FNV concluded after an investigation that at the Department of Justice and Security, the workplace is not safe. Nearly 2,000 civil servants filled out a survey, with half indicating they had experienced transgressive behavior in the past year. That’s about 1,000 employees.
In September, the Court of Audit published a report on integrity and the reporting culture in the central government following a survey of 4,500 civil servants. According to the Court’s president, one of the shocking conclusions is that twice as many civil servants are more likely not to report suspected integrity violations than to do so. This is because 30-40 percent of non-reporters indicate that reporting does not feel safe. In addition, 45 percent are not confident that their report will be handled properly.
In early November, an article appeared on the front page of NRC about “a harrowing picture” of racism among government officials. In it, fifty or so civil servants with an immigrant background ask Interior and Kingdom Relations Minister Uitermark to urgently take “structural measures” against “institutional racism, discrimination and ethnic profiling within the national government.” They report facing racism on a daily basis at work. The signatories wish to remain anonymous, but NRC spoke to some of them. According to the article, previous staff surveys and research already showed that there are problems in this area in central government. It is also feared that there will be less focus on racism under the current right-wing government.
This was further illustrated the next day by a fire letter sent to Minister Chris Jansen at the Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management on behalf of 175 civil servants. The minister had previously indicated that as a private citizen he remained behind his party leader Geert Wilders’ “fewer Moroccans” statement, a statement for which Wilders was convicted. This would have led to an unsafe work environment and atmosphere.
Sobering news. But no surprise to The Integrity Coordinator. Earlier we wrote about the reporting culture at with State Department and Defense Department. And two years ago we wrote that whistleblower reports are recorded in the Annual Report of the State but very few. The number of reported integrity violations reported in 2023 (695) is not so strange and is close to the 0.5 reports per 100 employees common for the EU. What is exceptional, however, is that of all those 695 reports, only 7 were designated as suspected wrongdoing and only 1 case demonstrated wrongdoing. In business, about 50% of reports are eventually proven.
And it is not just the central government that is fumbling. We previously wrote an article about whistleblowers at the municipality of Rotterdam. In August 2024, the outcome of a report on racism, discrimination, sexual transgression, bullying and excessive violence at the Rotterdam Police Department’s Basisteam Centrum caused a stir. It had personnel implications.
And not everything is cake in Amsterdam either. On July 4, NRC reported that more than half of Amsterdam City Council officials experienced unwelcome behavior in the past year.
The media sector
Following reports of abuses at The Voice, De Wereld Draait Door and Studio Sport, an investigative committee was set up to examine behavior and culture at the broadcasters. In February, this Van Rijn committee published the report “Nothing seen, nothing heard and nothing done,” with a plan for improving social safety. According to Mariëtte Hamer, the government’s sexual transgression commissioner, the plan was hopeful but not concrete enough.
Then, in March, the FD reported that the general director of NOS was stepping down after reports that he had missed signals about abuses at the program De Wereld Draait Door.
In the same month, the FD reported that the editor-in-chief of broadcaster WNL, also an active director at the station, had been temporarily suspended following reports of bullying, harassment and pregnancy discrimination. The Van Rijn Commission report already showed that something was going on at WNL. After an investigation by KPMG, the Board of Supervisors concluded that the person in question would not return as editor-in-chief, but would return as a director. This caused such a commotion that he has now resigned permanently. Whether he can return as a director is still under discussion.
Following the Van Rijn report, the NTR also commissioned a study of the work culture. This investigation has stopped for now after a data breach.
The culture sector
The cultural sector is also known to be risky. In June 2024, an investigative report revealed a “broad-based” pattern of transgressive behavior at theater organization Likeminds. A month later, the ITA (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam) came under scrutiny for transgressive behavior and a culture of fear. And at the National Opera, too, there was unwanted behavior.
Academia
On March 2, 2024, an article appeared in NRC about harassment, bullying and racism at TU Delft. Because the board failed to address the problems, the Education Inspectorate said there was “mismanagement,” the toughest verdict it could give. The university then threatened to take the inspection to court for inaccuracies and poor substantiation, but ultimately refrained under internal pressure.
A month later, TU Delft’s university magazine Delta published an article about social insecurity at TU and was subsequently forced to take it offline.
The university’s reactions to both events are themselves a good illustration of the culture described.
According to the disputed article in the university magazine, the Executive Board allegedly silenced fifteen employees under penalty of “labor law measures” after they reported problems with the director of a university department to an external confidential advisor. This raises concerns about the structure and culture surrounding reports at TU. Not only with The Integrity Coordinator, but also with the Education Inspectorate. The latter requested that TU submit an improvement plan. In July, the inspection indicated that these plans are not yet receiving a passing grade. According to the FD, the inspection has little confidence that the College Board will adequately address the mismanagement found.
It’s not just rumbling in Delft, however. Radboud University in Nijmegen was also in the news because of hundreds of reports of inappropriate behavior. Of these, only 7 were ultimately submitted, one of which was found to be justified. Those are sobering numbers. So we were not surprised that the ombudsperson recently decided to resign. In any case, it is obviously odd that the university has appointed an ombuds officer with limited powers and not an independent integrity coordinator who receives and follows up on reports, as required by the Wbk.
Last year we already wrote an article about a whistleblower at Leiden University Medical Center. The case involved fraud with EU research funds. On April 25, 2024, a new case presented itself in Leiden when it was announced that the University was initiating dismissal proceedings against a professor for undesirable behavior. It later emerged that 19 reports were received of, among other things, long-term misconduct, including discrimination, manipulation, yelling and bullying by a prominent archaeologist. The issue appeared to have been going on for years.
July 5, 2024 Rianne Letschert, president of the Maastricht University Board of Governors, speaks out. Mariëtte Hamer had signaled that the number of reports of inappropriate behavior at universities has doubled in four years. It is the “tip of the iceberg,” she says. In May 2024, the Education Inspectorate found that 55 percent of university employees surveyed said they had experienced unwanted behavior in the past two years and 34 percent reported discrimination.
In previous years, reports and incidents of misbehaving professors, frightened PhD students and workplace harassment also came out with regularity. Why does undesirable behavior in universities remain such a persistent problem? Training in leadership and a standard script for notifications should start to help. Letschert now wants to move forward with a national plan. ‘I’ve been working in academia for years and I see that the threshold for reporting inappropriate behavior has gone down and so a lot is coming out. That’s positive ‘…’The non-commitment to do more work on this has to come off. We really need to start taking leadership at our universities seriously now,’ Letschert said.
It is our impression that this plays out more broadly than in academia, the culture and media sector and central government. We find it difficult to assess whether undesirable behavior is more common than before. The picture that does emerge from this anthology is that undesirable behavior is less tolerated, the threshold for reporting seems to have dropped, and this demands quite a bit from leadership.
Setting up good reporting procedures is a good start, but even more important is an open, culture of integrity and how leadership handles and discusses reports.
Feel free to contact us if you want to know more about this.
