Protect welcomes the long-awaited government review of the whistleblowing framework in the UK. We have been calling for this for many years, and have drafted our own Bill of all the changes that are needed.
Protect (then called Public Concern at Work) was instrumental in drafting the UK’s whistleblowing law – the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. However, that law is now 25 years old and needs to be updated to keep pace with the modern workforce and international best practice.
We have identified three key areas where we want to see urgent improvement. First, the scope of who is protected should be widened to all those in the workplace and we’re pleased to see that the review will consider the definition of workers. Second, employers should be under duties to respond to whistleblowers and investigate concerns. Third, we want to see greater access to justice for whistleblowers who face the tribunal, for example by changing the test for whistleblowing dismissal.
We will feed into the review: we need to improve our framework to ensure that whistleblowing is effective for organisations, whistleblowers and society as a whole.
More information about the changes we want to see to the whistleblowing framework is available on our legal reform pages.