It is anticipated that the SRA will soon join the list of bodies designated to receive whistleblowing concerns under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA).

PIDA protects workers who report certain categories of wrongdoing, provided they do so through appropriate channels, by giving them recourse against dismissal or other detriment faced as a result of speaking up. To qualify for protection a disclosure must generally be made to either an employer or a "prescribed person" listed in the legislation.

Prescribed persons are regulators or bodies deemed appropriate recipients of disclosures because of their oversight functions within particular sectors. Over time this list has expanded to include authorities such as the HSE, the FCA and the director of the SFO.

Despite its central role in regulating the legal sector the SRA has, to date, sat outside this framework. While the SRA actively encourages and receives reports of misconduct, it is not formally recognised as a prescribed person for whistleblowing purposes in the same way as its regulatory counterparts in other industries.

This effectively limits who legal professionals can report concerns to if they are to benefit from whistleblowing protections. While disclosures can in some circumstances be made directly to the SRA in the first instance, additional conditions must be satisfied to justify doing so, such as showing a genuine risk that the firm may destroy evidence if the matter were raised internally first.

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