People rightly expect to be protected from suffering any mistreatment by their employer should they blow the whistle at work about a matter of genuine public concern.
Employment law gives individuals who feel they have suffered mistreatment, as a result of raising a concern, the right to seek redress at an Employment Tribunal. The law also acts as a deterrent to employers and co-workers by letting them know that if they do mistreat a whistleblower they could find themselves before an Employment Tribunal.
A big misunderstanding about the whistleblowing system is that people think it’s there to ensure someone gets to the bottom of the issue that has been reported – for example, understanding whether there really has been malpractice within an organisation. This is not the case – the law is there to give a whistleblower the chance for redress if they have been mistreated. Much to the frustration of many whistleblowers, an Employment Tribunal will be focused on whether they were fairly dismissed or badly treated rather than whether there is some form of malpractice taking place in a particular organisation.
Over last summer, we carried out a ‘call for evidence’ exercise where we asked a number of questions about the way the whistleblowing system was working. There were calls to address the fact that the whistleblower’s reports are not the focus of the investigation. There were also concerns that the law does not always deter an employer from mistreating an employee who has been identified as a whistleblower.
We will shortly be publishing a Government response that will discuss these issues and many others. And, we will set out our ideas for addressing them. Watch this space.
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