What is whistleblowing?

You’re a whistle-blower if you’re a worker and you report certain types of wrongdoing. This will usually be something you’ve seen at work – though not always. The wrongdoing you disclose must be in the public interest. This means it must affect others, for example the general public.

Employers often think that whistleblowing sits at a very high level involving things like corruption. This is not the case and whistleblowing relates to the breach of any legal duty. It can therefore stem from more ordinary and everyday complaints. For example an employee who is concerned about tripping hazards in the shop where they work could be seen as a whistle-blower.

This can be problematic for employers who often neglect to understand that the whistle is being blown. This can then lead to dangerous and costly complaints in the employment tribunal.

When an employee blows the whistle it is necessary to deal with the issue in a very similar way to how you would approach a workplace grievance. You need to meet with the employee, obtain documents, speak to witnesses and investigate fully. If you don’t do these things you risk significant breaches of employment rights.

The outcome of a whistleblowing procedure may be that there is no case to answer or it could lead to some further action such as recommendations, potential disciplinary action or some other steps.

You have to treat all whistleblowing issues carefully. Even if the employee is wrong about the alleged breach of a legal duty they still have legal protection as a whistle-blower.

In practice this means that they should not be unfairly treated as a result of blowing the whistle. So long as an employee has an outstanding whistleblowing disclosure you need to make sure that nothing you do could look like a detriment. This could include things like poor performance sanctions.

You need to be even more careful if you dismiss an employee who has made a whistleblowing case. If the employee is able to show that the dismissal was linked to the disclosure they can bring a claim for automatic unfair dismissal. This is a particularly dangerous claim for an employer as there is no cap on damages and an employee does not need two years’ service.