By JEREMY CALVERT, business affairs reporter
10mar03
FEDERAL accountants are in hot water for scrutinising more than just tax returns.
The Australian Taxation Office has confirmed several employees are under investigation for downloading pornography on work terminals.
Tax office spokeswoman Virginia Stanhope would not reveal details of the offences, saying revealing where they occurred and at what level of the organisation could prejudice the investigation.
"I can tell you that a small number of people have been notified they will be investigated," she said.
"There is no disciplinary action at this stage. It is material that they had on their computer, I don't know if it came in by e-mail or how it came in."
Thirteen Telstra staff were sacked, 12 warned and two resigned voluntarily because of porn-related incidents.
The latest tax office investigation comes less than a year after other tax office workers were disciplined for similar
offences when a routine audit discovered pornography stored on office hard drives.
Ms Stanhope said it was not appropriate to reveal full details of the sanctions that stemmed from the earlier audit.
"I can only tell you there was disciplinary action taken last year, nobody was dismissed," she said.
"There are four levels of disciplinary action, the first is counselling and a warning letter, then fines, demotions, and in the worst cases dismissal."
Ms Stanhope said new software designed specifically to identify images had led to the latest investigation of inappropriate material.
She said a full audit of the tax office computer system would follow, and should take about two months to complete.
"In an organisation this size, you will face these issues. We take it very seriously and we are required by law to monitor it and we do that," Ms Stanhope said.
She said the tax office had turned to other major organisations to refine their own monitoring process.
"We want to get it right, we want to identify the extent of the problem, deal with staff who may have breached policies and raise awareness."
Ms Stanhope stressed investigations did not always lead to disciplinary action.
"The last time we did an audit, a very significant number of people who were investigated were cleared because a lot of things were unsolicited," she said.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6101392%255E662,00.html
