From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Naughty naughty. Which high-profile person who has been in the media a great deal in recent years is allegedly sleeping with their lawyer? Is this ethical? If you’re a lawyer who can help tease out the ethics of this, drop us a line … on second thoughts, perhaps we shouldn’t be asking lawyers to advise on ethical matters.

Do not call, Greens! An aggrieved tipster reckons the Greens released details of their membership to a researcher at the University of Sydney, who then emailed the tipster, much to their annoyance. Was this supposed to happen? Doesn’t seem right … we thought the Greens were big on respecting people’s privacy.

Split. We’ve heard from reputable sources that a certain federal lower house MP has split from his wife. There are young children involved. The demands on pollies to travel to Canberra, keep track of the Blackberry etc are heavy, and many MPs find it really hard to find time to spend with their families. But we’ll leave out the details as they’re none of our business.

Heads rolling at EY? We’ve heard more about our tip yesterday that senior execs from Ernst & Young in Canberra have walked away from the firm. While we hinted they might be law-types, some are saying it might be those from the accounting/management/IT side of things. Know more? Put us out of our misery.

Razor gangs in the APS? We’ve heard plenty in the media about public service cuts in black holes like Queensland, but this Canberra insider reckons it’s happening more than you might think at the federal level:

“The program commenced earlier this year with an internal announcement that no further contractors would be engaged after June 30. Substantial numbers of rolling/monthly contractors left on that date and no re-hires have occurred. Since then, over the last few months, departments have been engaging in a program of ‘natural attrition’ in which (permanent)  staff leaving are not replaced.

Then whole functions (sections and even branches) within departments have been terminated and staff transferred to positions not in accord with their original career choices. Staff have, more recently, been called to meetings and told that the departments are now looking for further ‘voluntary’ redundancies.

Middle-ranking and even senior staff are simply being moved to much lower status positions and effectively humiliated. This means no redundancy payout is required. Senior staff are now even prowling around their departments looking over peoples’ shoulders to see whether they doing any ‘real’ work.”

Is our mole on the money? Public service types can tell us what it’s like on the inside here — and you can stay anonymous.

*Do you know more? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form.