The King's Speech and whistleblowing

In the King's Speech, after much fanfare and expectation, we finally had the confirmation of the Employment Rights Bill, which the government says represents “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”.

The bill contains a host of measures including making flexible working the default from day-one, banning exploitative zero-hour contracts and establishing a new Single Enforcement Body, also known as a Fair Work Agency, to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights.

But what of whistleblowing?

The Government says it’s committed to delivering its New Deal for Working People in full which does include a commitment to strengthen whistleblowing protections, including by updating protections for women who report sexual harassment at work.  We want to see a shift from just encouraging speaking up to insisting on listening to concerns raised.

We have three key asks on government to update whistleblowing law, which we will be pushing forward in this session of Parliament:

👉 a duty on employers to investigate whistleblowing concerns: this could stop harm earlier, protect employers from misconduct and fines and reduce the cost of failures to the public purse. 

👉 an extension of whistleblowing rights to cover all those in the workplace: the law has not kept pace with the twenty-first century workplace – self-employed contractors, non-executive directors, trustees, job applicants and others need whistleblowing rights. 

👉 a simplification of the legal tests for whistleblowing to improve access to justice: whistleblowing law is complex and difficult to navigate without legal representation – simpler tests would mean more whistleblowers were compensated if they were harmed for their brave decision to speak up. 

Additionally, the King announced the introduction of a “duty of candour” for public servants. We certainly welcome the proposed “Hillsborough Law” and the intended measures to improve openness and accountability to tackle the defensive cultures highlighted in the Hillsborough and Infected Blood Inquiries. However, civil servants need effective whistleblower protection. At present there is no external body (outside of their own Department) that civil servants can blow the whistle to. We want to see an independent statutory commissioner, as recommended by the Law Commission, to respond to civil servants’ whistleblowing concerns.

A notable omission in the King’s Speech was the need to hold senior managers in the NHS to account. During the election campaign, the now Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, promised to address this issue as a matter of priority and ensure that managers who ignore or victimise whistleblowers are prevented from working in the NHS. A positive change would be the creation of a new professional body for managers, as recommended in the Kark review, or a duty on managers to listen and respond to whistleblower concerns as recommended in the report from the Infected Blood Inquiry.