The Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill (Bill) that was introduced into Parliament last year has now received royal assent on 13 May 2022 and will repeal and replace the Protections Disclosures Act 2000 (PDA) on 1 July 2022. This will be known as the Protected Disclosures Act 2022 (Act).

Previously, public awareness of whistle-blower legislation was relatively low, with many employees and employers lacking an understanding of how the regime works. However, as discussed in our previous article of 21 January 2022, some of the changes coming into force may well change this.

While the Act goes a long way in clarifying the process for whistleblowing (both for disclosers and receivers) and enhances protection for the those making disclosures, it has muddied the waters somewhat in relation to the expansion of the definition of “serious wrongdoing”. This is because, at the eleventh hour, the definition of serious wrongdoing was expanded to expressly include behavior that is a serious risk to the health and safety of any individual, which could apply in situations of bulling and harassment for example.

We discussed this in our previous article, noting it would be worth watching and that an amendment expanding the definition could result in the legislation being a tool for employees to express a litany of minor grievances.

This has therefore created added complexity for businesses navigating different legislative obligations relating to the same issue – for...

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