Lets hear it for Whistleblowers.

Powys County Council is on the hunt for a whistleblower. I hope this public spirited person remains uncovered. The story, so far.

Last week the County Council discovered that it had not carried out CRB checks on 44 staff - as it is required to do. Instead of making a public statement about this shocking failure in its systems, the Council decided to keep the matter secret. This was a bad mistake - and the Council is lucky that someone blew the whistle about what was going on before too much damage was done.

Then we heard that the Council went into overdrive to deal with the problem - but not about the failure to make CRB checks. Oh no. What sent the Council into a frenzy of activity was the leak. A formal inquiry has been set up. Aside from its inappropriateness, I wonder what this is going to cost Council Tax payers.

Such shady behaviour smacks of cover-up. And over the weekend, my concerns have been heightened by two telephone calls from recent employees of the Council who tell me that they were not checked when they should have been - and that the Council has not yet given us the full story. I have no way of knowing what has really been going on - but I have to report that my two new whistleblowers sounded highly plauseable to me.

But what was really scary was that both told me that they were afraid to give me their names because they were afraid of being victimised by the Council. I'm afraid that this whistleblower inquiry rather justifies the fear in my callers voices. This situation does not look good.