The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that it is seeking to improve the confidence of whistleblowers in its whistleblower program. The FCA has been highly criticized by whistleblower advocates for its handling of whistleblower cases and its disinterest in paying monetary awards.

The FCA’s announcement follows a qualitative survey of whistleblowers conducted by the agency which found high-levels of dissatisfaction. In the survey, a majority of whistleblowers responded that they were “extremely or somewhat dissatisfied” with the FCA whistleblowing team in relation to listening and in relation to exploring the issues reported.

The FCA claims that it will improve the confidence of whistleblowers through the following actions:

• provide whistleblowers with more detail on what has been done with the information provided, or reasons for taking or not taking action
• improve the use of whistleblowers’ information across the FCA (eg making the best use of data and ensuring that end-to-end whistleblowing processes are as efficient as possible)
• enhance its webform – which is the most popular way for whistleblowers to contact the FCA – to fully capture every whistleblower’s disclosure
• engage with the Department for Business and Trade to support a review of whistleblower legislation to enhance the wider whistleblowing system

“We need the intelligence whistleblowers provide to identify and act on problems in the firms we regulate,” said Therese Chambers,...

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