Despite the challenges, we look back on our 2020 work with satisfaction: we welcomed a number of organisations who chose to work with us and receive ongoing support as Members, including Ecclesiastical Insurance, Wolverhampton City Council, Northampton Fire & Rescue, UK Athletics, Bailey Group Glyndebourne, and the Sanger Institute, amongst others. Joining Protect as a Member is a clear signal that an organisation shares our view that effective whistleblowing arrangements are a good thing – and that there should be more of them.
Our best-practice training transferred to Zoom, with excellent feedback, of an average of 9/10 throughout the year. These included our regular Whistleblowing Masterclass, our Financial Services Champions regular session, and tailored courses. We’ve also held well attended webinars – on the findings of our Silence in the City 2 report, on the challenges of whistleblowing during Covid, and on how Regulators can support effective whistleblowing.
Our support in the Insurance and Charity sectors continued over the year, and we ran a successful round table just before lockdown, and also a training session kindly sponsored by Mayer Brown, attended by companies such as Marsh, WPA, and NFU Mutual.
We have continued to operate an Advice Line on behalf of the Charity Commission for England & Wales, and delivered a training session attended by Salvation Army, The Prince’s Trust, Francis Crick Institute and Scottish Association for Mental Health. Our Whistleblowing Benchmark pilot findings were published, in our report Time to Transform.
Our Whistleblowing Benchmark has again proved to be a popular tool for organisations to assess the health of their whistleblowing culture: clients this year have included G4S, ANZ Bank, Mazars and Oxfam.
In 2020 we completed our training of trade unionists around Europe, moving online for our last training session, as part of our project with Eurocadres. We produced a best practice toolkit for trade unions on whistleblowing, and we look forward to working with Eurocadres to disseminate the findings.
We look forward to working with many more organisations in 2021 to improve arrangements and creative a culture where whistleblowers are welcomed.
Below is a testimonial from a Member who joined us this year.