Recent changes to the so-called "Whistleblowing" Act have increased the number of bodies to whom employees can make disclosures.
The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) came into force in July 1999. It was introduced in the wake of various workplace scandals and disasters after official enquiries revealed that workers had known of the situation but were too scared to come forward to raise the alarm.
PIDA gives workers legal protection when disclosing information relating to crimes, breaches of a legal obligation, miscarriages of justice, dangers to health and safety or the environment and to the concealing of evidence relating to any of these. In particular, PIDA makes it automatically unfair dismissal to dismiss an employee for making a protected disclosure, in good faith, to someone to whom they are entitled to make it or to penalise them for doing so.
There are specific categories of persons to whom protected disclosures relating to the above list of circumstances can be made, which include the employer, legal advisers, a minister (if the employee works for an official body) and certain "prescribed persons", including a number of statutory bodies such as the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, the Inland Revenue and Customs and the Financial Services Authority.
As of 1 October 2003 the list was revised and now includes six new institutions responsible for the regulation of care in organisations such as hospitals and children's homes. Whistleblowers can safely make disclosures through a full list of organisations.
According to a recent report carried out by the charity Public Concern at Work, workers are twice as likely to blow the whistle nowadays as they were five years ago. The charity has a useful website which can be found at http://www.pcaw.co.uk/.
It is advisable for employers to have a formal whistleblowing procedure in place and to make sure that all employees are aware of it.
