Whistleblowing and how to handle public interest disclosures

Whistleblowing incidents can arise at any time and take many different forms. They can be raised openly or anonymously by staff, service users or via funders and other stakeholders - they can be raised in isolation or in the context of other going internal processes such as grievance or disciplinary investigations.The subject matter of the disclosure can relate to a wide range of allegations of wrong doing or unlawful activity - we encounter many situations from allegations of mistreatment of service users, fraud, theft, contract breaches, misappropriation of funds or funding, falsification of records, data protection breaches, unlawful destruction of records and health and safety breaches.The official term is a public interest disclosure but not every disclosure is easily identified or addressed, particularly if raised by a disgruntled member of staff or service user. The key challenges for an organisation are ensuring that public interest disclosures are properly investigated and that the person who raises the disclosure is not subject to any detriment as a consequence of having made their disclosure in the public interest.

Over the course of an hour, Louise will summarise the key legal issues arising and share some experiences and learnings from cases that have arisen in her practice.

- Action Plan-Preliminary investigation

- Safeguarding services users-Safeguarding any evidence-Consideration of precautionary suspensions-Statutory agency involvement-Notification to Regulators & Funders

- Engagement with Whistle-blower-Investigation & Next Steps-Implementing recommendations including any disciplinary action

- The importance of having a Whistleblowing policy that staff know how to use and are not afraid to use.

- No Blame Culture·Detrimental treatment & Tribunal claims

- how to identify and prevent detrimental treatment. [Case examples]·

- Roles of HR, SMT & the Board