A recent Court of Appeal decision has confirmed that external job applicants may not bring a claim for detriment suffered because of having blown the whistle (save for certain applications to work in the NHS). Nevertheless, the categories of individuals eligible for whistleblowing protection may still be wider than employers expect.
The Employment Rights Act 1996 (the ERA) protects workers from being dismissed or subjected to a detriment (essentially some form of disadvantage) because they have made a protected disclosure i.e. they have blown the whistle. The definition of a "protected disclosure" encompasses a range of actions – generally a disclosure will be protected if the individual sharing the information:
The definition of a "worker" in the ERA covers both those with an express or implied contract of employment and so-called "limb (b)" workers i.e. those who have an express or implied contract undertaking to perform work or services for another party, where that party is not a client or customer.
The whistleblowing provisions extend the definition of "worker" to include several categories of individuals who would not ordinarily meet the definition, namely:
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