The announcement by the SRA's general counsel last week that the SRA is looking for statutory designation under the whistleblower law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), to encourage reporting of SLAPPs, could provoke a number of responses.
The most mean-spirited would be that this is another attractive passing bandwagon for the SRA. SLAPPs have been well-known for years. I first wrote about them over four years ago, and I was hardly the first – there had long been complaints. But because the government has finally taken notice this year, the SRA has itself discovered SLAPPs, and we are told that 29 cases are now being investigated, relating to 17 firms. Only recently, though, has the SRA issued a SLAPPs warning. Now it wants to be recognised as an official body to which a whistleblowing disclosure can be made.
The opposite reaction is that it should not be a surprise that the SRA wants to be a prescribed body under PIDA. Other professional regulators in the area of health are already listed, such as those relating to doctors, dentists, optometrists and chiropractors. Of course ‘the health or safety of any individual’ is one of the grounds under PIDA for a qualifying disclosure. But so is a miscarriage of justice and a failure to comply with any legal obligation, which I assume are the grounds under which the SRA feels it may qualify.
The SRA has long encouraged whistleblowing. There is a page on its website dedicated to the topic. It urges people to come...
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