Research by Protect – Silence in The City 2 – into whistleblowers who work in finance in the City has found 70% who spoke up about workplace wrongdoing were victimised, ignored, dismissed, or felt forced to resign after whistleblowing.
The research analyses the whistleblowing cases of 352 finance workers who called the Protect Advice Line for advice about workplace wrongdoing they had witnessed between January 2017 and December 2019.
Head of Policy at Protect, Andrew Pepper-Parsons, said, “We conducted research in 2012 with law firm Slater & Gordon and our report Silence in the City looked into the experience of whistleblowing in the financial services sector. At that time the financial crash and Libor scandal raised the question – why hadn’t whistleblowers come forward with concerns? Our research back then found a lack of trust and transparency. We decided it was time to once again scrutinise our Advice Line data and look at calls from finance workers.”
Silence in the City 2, once again published with the support of Slater & Gordon, found although more workers are raising concerns with their employer since 2012, 70% were being victimised, ignored or felt forced to resign after blowing the whistle. Discrimination and harassment cases now form part of the top six concerns raised by whistleblowers.
Key findings: (SITC – Silence in the City)
- 70% of whistleblowers were either victimised, dismissed or resigned
- Discrimination and harassment cases form a top concern raised by whistleblowers (possibly due to the #MeToo movement)
- Top concerns – 19% has shifted from fraudulent or criminal activity in SITC1 which includes theft of client’s funds, expenses fraud etc. (19%), to legal or regulatory breaches e.g. mis-selling of financial products, failure to follow compliance rules around loans etc.
- 33% of concerns were ignored – a disappointing increase from 30% in Silence in the City 2012)
- More trust among whistleblowers to use internal whistleblowing arrangements – SITC1 found 78% of whistleblowers raised their concerns internally, i.e. with their employers, new research SITC2, shows increase to 93%.
- Whistleblowers are 10% more likely to raise their concern a second time. In SITC1, only 20% of financial services whistleblowers raised their concern a second time, in SITC2 this has risen to 30%.
One case study in Silence in the City 2, is ‘Carl’ (whose name has been changed) explained he blew the whistle on sexual harassment, bullying and racism after more than ten colleagues, across nine different departments were affected. His life was made difficult after blowing the whistle and he felt resignation was the only way out.
He said, “I don’t in all my years think I’ve known so many grown men and grown women tell me the trauma they’ve gone through and I’m not the sort of person that upsets easily. It’s been extremely upsetting to see people abuse their position of power and misuse authority to gain benefit.”
Clive Howard, Principal Employment Lawyer at Slater & Gordon, said, “That 7 in 10 raising concerns were victimised for doing so and a third reported that their concerns were ignored is deeply troubling. The findings from Silence in the City 2 confirm our own experiences with clients, blowing the whistle is a lonely exercise in Financial Services. The whistleblower invariably is forced to act alone, raising their concern without any support from colleagues.”
Protect says whilst positive there is much more awareness and trust by employees in the internal whistleblowing arrangements put in place by employers, and more employees are whistleblowing and giving their employers the opportunity to put things right – this could very easily be reversed if organisations don’t change their behaviour towards staff who speak up.
Protect Chief Executive Liz Gardiner said, “Cultural change in financial services sector has stalled. There needs to be more than lip-service to the stronger rules and regulations imposed on the sector – whistleblowers are speaking up, but our research suggests too many employers are not listening-up in response. A failure to listen to the concerns raised – and failure to prevent whistleblowers being victimised – may increase the risk of harm and wrongdoing going unchecked.”
Read the report Silence in The City