The All Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing has published its report following its formation in 2018 to consider the effectiveness of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
The Report calls for “a radical overhaul to provide legislation that supports our citizens in the 21st Centaury workplace… Having received input from over 400 people in response to our call for evidence we have concluded that PIDA has not lived up to expectations and has failed to provide adequate and comprehensive protection to whistleblowers or the public”.
The Report sets out a ’10 Point Plan’: recommendations include:
- the legal definition of whistleblowing to be revised and include any harmful
violation of integrity and ethics, even when not criminal or illegal. The focus should be on the harm (or risk of harm) to public - mandatory internal and external reporting mechanisms and protections should be adopted to include meaningful penalties for those who fail to meet the requirements across all sectors to include those currently outside of the regulations, e.g. journalists and clergy
- non-disclosure agreements in whistleblowing cases must be banned.