Blog

For Mental Health Awareness Week, Protect CEO Liz Gardiner reflects on the significant stress and isolation many whistleblowers face and the negative impact this has on their mental health.   At Protect, we hear from around 3,000 whistleblowers each year on our free, confidential legal Advice Line.  Callers raise concerns from charity governance to financial misconduct, ... Read more

Our April newsletter of 2022 is now out! It features details about our new publication: "Preventing Whistleblower Victimisation: a practical guide for employers" which provides unique advice to employers on how to protect whistleblowers. It also includes information about our launch webinar for the new guide, featuring NHS whistleblower Helene Donnelly, as well as new ... Read more

Protect's Legal Director, Sybille Raphael, reflects on byrne·dean event 'Reframing Whistleblowing', which explored how employers can create a 'speak up' culture.    What makes it hard to raise concerns at work?    This was the central question asked at the byrne·dean webinar 'Reframing Whistleblowing', which Protect CEO Elizabeth Gardiner spoke at on 31 March 2022.   ... Read more

Protect Legal Adviser, Rebecca Durkin, reflects on the significant abuse of whistleblowers in the UK and how our unique new guide will help employers address this problem.   Behind every scandal or story of wrongdoing, there will often be a whistleblower – someone who has brought the concerns about wrongdoing to light. Too often though, ... Read more

Rewarding whistleblowers financially for speaking up has been offered up by some as a panacea for fixing whistleblowing law. Here Protect volunteer Queenie Sit outlines our position, highlighting the severe limits of rewards in protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.   In the UK, whistleblowers bringing a claim under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (“PIDA”) before an ... Read more

Protect's Head of Policy, Andrew Pepper-Parsons, details our response to the shocking findings of the Ockenden Report and calls for an independent review of Speak Up in the NHS. ‘If I could say anything to the families it would be that there were people who tried to make changes, we tried to escalate our concerns ... Read more

Protect Head of Policy, Andrew Pepper-Parsons, responds to reports that the Metropolitan Police will issue 20 fines to government officials over illegal parties held during lockdown.  If press reports are correct and 20 fixed penalties are due to be issued for breaches to lockdown laws at 10 Downing Street and Whitehall, then the scale of ... Read more

Our March newsletter of 2022 is now out! It features details of our work on the Economic Crime Bill to protect whistleblowers, new training courses, information on the updated ICC whistleblowing guidelines, updates on the French approach to the EU whistleblowing Directive, and details of a webinar on 28 April where we will be launching ... Read more

Protect’s Advice Line is unique in two crucial ways:   1) The sheer volume of whistleblowers who contact it (more than 45,000 to date)    2) The support it provides.   To our knowledge, there are no other free legal advicelines for whistleblowers. We are unique in  providing in-depth expert advice on what rights whistleblowers have at their disposal ... Read more

Protect Legal Adviser, Emma Darlow Stearn, reflects on the significant legal protections provided to whistleblowers in France and how they can inform legal reform in the UK. It may be helpful to look across the channel for inspiration from France’s new whistleblowing law.   In 2019, the EU ‘whistleblowing’ directive was passed, setting a minimum standard ... Read more