Company boards shift focus to employee welfare and benefits as firms attempt to attract and retain staff
22 January 2026
Whistleblowing has dropped down the list of priorities for business directors, despite anti-fraud laws requiring organisations to have more robust procedures for exposing corruption.
A third (34 per cent) of the 500 UK directors surveyed by investment trust Law Debenture classified whistleblowing as low priority.
The findings come as employers face increased regulatory scrutiny under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA), which requires organisations to put reasonable procedures in place to prevent fraud and improve transparency.
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Home Office guidance on the legislation describes whistleblowing as “one of the most effective ways to uncover corruption” and encourages board-level accountability to oversee whistleblowing.
Failure to comply can result in unlimited personal fines and criminal convictions for directors.
“The deprioritisation of important areas, such as whistleblowing, cannot afford to be overlooked. ECCTA legislation, which is centred heavily on financial fraud and having robust whiteblowing procedures in place to combat it, needs to be high on the agenda of any business,” said Ben Turner, managing director of corporate secretarial services at Law Debenture.
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