Whistleblowing is an important channel for exposing and, ultimately, tackling everything from corruption, fraud and other economic crimes to bullying in the workplace. The Department for Business and Trade is conducting a review of how UK “whistle blower” protections are working.

Although it never appears in the legislation, the term “whistleblowing” is used to mean when a worker makes a disclosure of information which they reasonably believe shows wrongdoing or someone covering up wrongdoing and that the disclosure is in the public interest. The disclosure must relate to one of six types of “relevant failures”, which include criminal offences, the endangerment of health and safety, causing damage to the environment, a miscarriage of justice or a breach of any legal obligation.

The current framework

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) inserted new worker protections for whistleblowing into the Employment Rights Act 1996. These are:

• the right for employees to bring a claim of automatically unfair dismissal if they believe that the reason, or principal reason, for their dismissal was the making of a protected disclosure. This is a “day 1” right in that two years’ service is not required; and
• that the right for workers (including but not limited to employees) to bring a claim if they are subjected to any detriment on the ground that they have made a protected disclosure. These claims can be in the form of a detriment claim against an employer or co-worker, or a...

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