Whistleblowing Solicitors

Whistleblowing claims carry uncapped financial liabilities and significant reputational damage. Our expert whistleblowing solicitors represent employers in handling protected disclosures safely. We manage complex internal investigations and provide aggressive legal defence strategies to mitigate your commercial risk.

Whistleblowing Advice for Employers

Expectations placed on employers with regard to the handling of whistleblowing are increasing, with recent changes in regulation and market pressure.

Whistleblowing is important because it can shine a light on concerns within a workplace, which in turn enables employers to learn, prevent future occurrences, and ultimately protect the public.

Whistleblowing has been the subject of specific legislation in the UK since 1998 with the introduction of the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which created specific rights and protection for whistleblowers.

Similarly, HMRC are looking increasingly closely at how contractors are engaged, in reality, to determine whether their self-employed status is genuine. This means it is important for employers to engage staff on the correct basis to avoid fines and penalties, which could put their business at risk.

In order to minimise any potential risks and financial uncertainty, it’s important for businesses to review their staffing structures, individual status and terms and conditions of employment.

How Loch can help

We can help you to draft and communicate a clear whistleblowing policy, encouraging your workers to approach you directly about any concerns they might have.

As part of that policy, it would be advantageous to include things like:

A definition of what whistleblowing is;
What constitutes a whistleblowing disclosure;
What protections are given to workers who blow the whistle;
An explanation of the organisation’s procedures for dealing with disclosures of whistleblowing;
An explicit commitment to treat all disclosures equally and fairly;
A commitment to – where requested and legally possible – maintain confidentiality; and
An idea of the timeframe for handling a disclosure.

By implementing a comprehensive and clear whistleblowing policy, you, as an employer, are better equipped with information to control risk within your business. In other words, the regular reporting of concerns by your employees can prove advantageous.

Whistleblowers who are entitled to protection must receive it. We can help you to navigate the day-to-day running of your business while ensuring that those who blow the whistle are not unfairly treated.

If an employee is claiming that they have indeed been unfairly treated, we can provide mediation, assist with settlement agreements – where appropriate – and represent your interests in an employment tribunal.

What is whistleblower protection?

In the UK, workers can, in certain, specified situations disclose information about their employer’s wrongdoing and obtain protection in relation to that disclosure.

It is not the case that a worker may make any disclosure and claim protection. Rather, the disclosure must amount to a “qualifying disclosure”, be made in the ‘public interest’ and be made to an appropriate or prescribed person or body. In general terms, most qualifying disclosures made to a worker’s employer will be protected. Stricter regimes apply if the disclosure is made to someone other than the employee’s employer.

The intention of the law is to encourage workers to disclose concerns to their employers and ensure they are not subjected to detriment for doing so.

Who is protected?

The protection applies to employees and also workers, which includes freelancers, agency staff and directors.

Special provisions apply to others such as Crown employees and police officers.

Which disclosures are covered?

In order to attract protection, the disclosure must be a “qualifying disclosure”.

This means any disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the person making the disclosure, is in the public interest and tends to show one or more of the following:

a criminal offence
failure to comply with a legal obligation
a miscarriage of justice
the health or safety of an individual has been endangered
damage to the environment, or
concealment of information showing any of the above.

Our team will be more than happy to discuss how they can help you with whistleblowing support. For more information, click here to request a call back.