UK whistleblowers will face reduced rights compared to other EU citizens post Brexit
09 October 2018
The whistleblowing charity ‘Public Concern at Work’ has marked its 25-year anniversary with a new look and name.
“During its 25-year history, we have supported more than 40,000 people. The first whistleblowing organisation in the UK, we have been helping people raise concerns through our advice line since 1993 and played a key role in campaigning for the whistleblowing law in the UK, the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA)", said protect chief executive Francesca West.
“We aim to protect workers’ rights, organisations' reputations, and wider society, by encouraging safe and responsible whistleblowing. We believe that whistleblowing ultimately protects customers, beneficiaries, staff and the organisation itself."
Protect is an independent charity that offers free, confidential support for whistleblowers and also supports organisations with best practice whistleblowing arrangements.
Stronger new whistleblowing laws for EU
EU rules announced in April of this year will require all organisations to have reporting channels for whistleblowers and to respond to whistleblowing issues raised in a timely manner.
The EU move on introducing a whistleblowing Directive follows years of campaigning by Non-Governmental Organisations, trade unions and journalists and will see an end to fragmented gaps in whistleblowing protection across EU countries.
According to Protect whilst this is good news for Europe, UK whistleblowers are being left behind its European neighbours. This is missing from the current UK whistleblowing legislation, PIDA (the Public Interest Disclosure Act) introduced 20 years ago.
Francesca West said:
“We are calling on the UK government to urgently review and amend our PIDA legislation so that the public interest is protected and workers feel safe to raise concerns about wrongdoing risk or malpractice and harm is prevented…UK whistleblowers will be facing reduced rights compared to other EU citizens when the UK leaves the EU.”