The Cost of Whistleblowing
20 August 2019
The All Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) for whistleblowing has recommended the formation of an Independent Office to transform the way both society and organisations react to whistleblowing.
With increasing focus on organisational culture and new global laws and regulations to support transparency and whistleblowers, the APPG says the UK needs a comprehensive, transparent and accessible framework and an organisation that will support whistleblowers and whistleblowing.
Whistleblowing continually makes the headlines around the world and the APPG report highlights that what does not always reach the headlines is the appalling and unlawful treatment of the whistleblowers who by just doing the right thing risk everything to protect others.
The APPG report ‘Whistleblowing; The Personal Cost of Doing the Right Thing and the Cost to Society of Ignoring it’. shines a light on a culture that too often supports the covering up of wrongdoing and the penalising of whistleblowers.
Despite acceptance that whistleblowers are the single most cost-effective and important means of identifying and addressing wrongdoing, they become the target of retaliation by organisations determined to protect their reputation.
In this report, the APPG sets out its findings:
- The UK regulatory framework of whistleblower protection is complicated, overly legalistic, cumbersome, obsolete and fragmented
- The remedies provided by The Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) are mainly retrospective and largely not understood
- A general obligation for public and private organisations to set up whistleblowing mechanisms and protections is missing
- The definition of whistleblowing and whistleblowers is too narrow. Consequently, the protections set by the law apply only to a limited number of citizens and do not properly reflect existing working practice or protect the public
- As a result of the excessive complexity and fragmentation of the regulatory framework, there is little public knowledge or understanding of the existing legal protections for whistleblowers
- That policy and procedure, while looking good on paper, bears no resemblance to actual practice
- There is a disconnect between what is understood to be and what is the role of the prescribed persons leading to confusion, mistrust on both sides and allowing crimes and other wrongdoing to escape scrutiny
- The cost of litigation is too great for most citizens and this is known and exploited by employers
Did you know?
The notion of drawing attention to wrongdoing by ‘blowing the whistle’ originates from the Metropolitan Police Force who in February 1884 issued 21,000 whistles - the nineteenth-century mobile phone. The effectiveness of blowing the whistle can be seen to this day on sports fields around the world. A whistle remains the most effective means of being heard above the crowd and drawing attention to an issue.
In 1998 the UK became the first EU nation to introduce legal rights and protections for whistleblowers when Sir Richard Shepherd introduced The Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA). While ground-breaking it has failed in its most important role - to protect the whistleblower - perhaps because ‘Whistleblowing’ still has no definition in law. It is however generally understood to be an act by an individual or individuals that expose wrongdoing or perceived wrongdoing on the part of an organisation of any kind.
The APPG has made recommendations in its report that will help shape the future of not only workers but all citizens by proposing an Independent Office for the Whistleblower that will transform the way both society and organisations react to whistleblowing.