'Low pay and boredom led me to get a secret second job'
The public sector is making strides to cracking down on employees who work in several occupations at the same time, although in secrecy. The tactic, also known as polygamous working, has certainly become more popular with remote working's growth, but it can also be unlawful depending on your employment situation. According to BBC London, the Cabinet Office's national anti-fraud campaign had caught out 301 workers in the public sector and recovered £1,500. 35m in salary payment. A council employee was found guilty of fraud for having two full time positions at two London councils in a recent lawsuit. I talked to someone who worked in multiple secrecy in the past and found out what councils and the government are doing to reduce this trend and the impacts it has on public services.
Imtiaz Shams, a tech start-up's CEO and in his mid-thirties, worked as a public sector finance assistant in his gap year, saving his £16,000 per year for university tuition. He was also working a second job in the private sector at the time, yet unidentified to his employer.
I was on Reddit the whole day,My job was boring. A lot of Excel stuff was automated.
he said.So I did a side contract. I made some money. They were delighted to find someone who was automating their processes.
I should not have worked there,Imtiaz says, adding,
Imtiaz now works in the private tech industry, where he actively encourages his employees to do something outside of the company.I shouldn't have been fired there but I wasn't paid well enough to feel bad. That's why I left.
In tech, we're paid well. We can live in London. You can imagine the struggle with council employees and social workers, I believe.Why? Because I want them to be happy. Good people are hungry. If they aren't providing for me, there's a problem.
Is there a grey area?
While polygamous employment is not unlawful, it could potentially break contracts, and could result in dismissal for gross misconduct or in some cases, a fraud lawsuit. Although there is currently no formal definition of polygamous employment, Osborne & Wise employment lawyer Kaajal Nathwani, claims that it is a new phenomenon. It's a
trend of holding multiple unidentified occupations,
.she characterized it as a trend of holding down multiple secret made popular on TikTok, Instagram
she said, but it can be unconstitutional if a deal requires an individual not to work in another occupation or have another form of employment.It's not illegal, per se, it's certainly not fraudulent on the face of it,
she said.It's also in violation of the implied word of mutual trust and confidence in an employment relationship, even though it's written in a contract of employment,
Nathwani explained.In addition to that, there may be ramifications of data leakage and data security that arise,
she said,I'm also curious about whether or not you are fully dedicated to doing a job if you're doing multiple jobs and multiple roles throughout the day. Polygamous work is different to moonlighting,
more and more prevalent.which is used to describe someone having a side hustle or side job when not working in a full time job is usually kept private and done often at night. According to Nathwani, labor arrangements were not as clear as not encouraging employees to allow second jobs, but the trend is now becoming
'Cheating the system'
Public service employees are funded by taxpayers to provide a variety of local and national services, such as social workers whose protection of vulnerable children at risk of injury or civil servants in large government departments.
the government says. The government owes it to them to ensure decency and reverence, as well as to arrest every individual who violates the system for good.Millions of people work hard, pay their taxes, and contribute to their families,
good example of how people are abusing and wasting taxpayer money, and we will not accept it. Although home working has a multitude of benefits, he says,HMRC can pick up multiple sources of income, but it focuses on tax compliance and does not have the complete picture. The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) in the government is collecting data from several agencies to find anomalies in payroll, pension, and insurance records in order to tackle this problem. So far, 301 cases have been identified since 2016, including 256 in England, where 301 have been dismissed or resigned in the United Kingdom. They have found 13 cases of polygamous work in the 2024-25 financial year, which has saved £113,000 in recoverable savings. Barnet Council is one of the NFI's pilot councils and has sacked an individual for dishonesty last year for working full time at two London councils at the same time, earning £10,000. Polygamous employment, according to Cabinet Member Simon Radford, is a
it has made a differenceto polygamous coworking, in terms of people not being on video camera and not being available when they claim to be. This is what Imtiaz observed in his previous work.
he said. Beatrice Eduah, a social worker who served at three separate councils at the same time in August last year, was told she would have to pay back one of her employers. Eduah, 42, of Jaric Lane, Brampton, Cambridgeshire, had been employed as an agency worker with Suffolk County Council's adult social care staff.I knew there was one individual who wasn't coming to the office at all - basically doing childcare - and they were getting paid. It's rampant in the public sector. So it's a problem,
'Rampant in the public sector'
Imtiaz believes that a large number of public sector employees are not compensated sufficiently
and that the government is trying to punish people for a broken system.
We can never really know the motives behind polygamous working cases,
The people at the highest level will get away with it,Radford said, but we do know that Barnet Council compensation is generally competitive in our market. Regardless of whether you're employed in the public or private sector, unlawful polygamous employment is a felony.
Imtiaz has said.It's the lower and middle-paid employees who are being chased for this money. To be honest, it doesn't seem right to me.
We will sue someone who is polygamously working,However, Radford denied this and said that it was not the case.
he said.It doesn't matter if they're at the top of the tree or lower branches; it's something we have zero tolerance for. It's something I don't recognise.
I believe there's an old joke, correct, that in the public sector people don't work as hard as the private sector.Radford denied rumors about the sector's high unemployment.
There are several other ongoing fraud cases involving polygamous employees in Barnet's library.I think what this shows is that people who don't work as hard as they are supposed to for taxpayer money are convicted.
'Undermining public trust'
Shadow Chancellor Alex Burghart of Lancaster's Duchy of Lancaster has accused the government of not properly monitoring second jobs and outside roles in the civil service.
he said.Hard-working taxpayers want efficiency and transparency from the public sector, but Labour has oversawn a bloated system that runs in secrecy,
Cabinet Office Minister Josh Simons said.Fraudsters who claim multiple public sector salaries are undermining public confidence,
For the first time,We are working with councils to root out these polygamous employees through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). We are uncovering the inconsistencies that criminals are attempting to mask by comparing payroll, pension, and health insurance data around the country.
The government wanted to go further,14 government departments participated in the exercise. The Fraud Hub website, which also holds details of employees who were fired for misconduct, has increased by 30% to ensure that no one get a new government job.
he said, and increased data-matching was underwayto continue to identify these risks even more effectively. Though working from home has reduced the practical barriers to
polygamous working,local authorities and government are concerned that those working two jobs in secrecy may not be able to get away with it as effectively as they did. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Soundsand. Facebook,XandInstagram are two social media networks.
