There is a longstanding recognition that whistleblowers have a valuable role to play in the uncovering of wrongdoing, in both the public and private sectors.
Could we do more to protect and incentivise them?
The House of Lords has recently considered the provisions of the protection for whistleblowing bill – a product of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing, introduced as a private member’s bill by Baroness Susan Kramer.
It is designed to enhance the protections available to those who speak out, not only against their employer, but their clients, suppliers, contractors and others.
Whistleblowers are, in the words of Kramer, the “canaries in the mine”. They give early and valuable alerts of wrongdoing and are one of the most effective means of uncovering misconduct.
But the protections currently available to whistleblowers are limited and as it stands provide little or no recompense for the impact of doing the right thing on the whistleblower’s career.
Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, whistleblowers are protected from retaliation by their employer, but enforcing that right comes at considerable cost, and with no guarantee of success. Very few claims in the employment tribunal under PIDA are successful.
Arguably the bigger problem is that all too often whistleblowers find their future prospects severely limited, particularly those...
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a legal complaint in a federal court in the Southern District of Florida to shut down tax return preparers Cedric Reid and Juan Santana, along with their b...