Disclosures in the public interest policy

A public interest disclosures policy statement will provide your employees with a route for them to raise qualifying disclosures under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Without it, you might find that the employee runs straight to the relevant authorities to report their concerns, giving you no opportunity to try to deal with the matter internally first.

In the public interest

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 prevents workers who make protected disclosures from being dismissed or subjected to any other detriment as a result of making the disclosure. It is important that your Disclosures in the Public Interest Policy statement, or whistle-blowing policy, is well publicised to staff and that managers are trained to implement it. Our policy statement sets out the essentials of the legislation in terms of what types of disclosure qualify for protection and then it goes on to set out a detailed procedure encouraging the employee to raise their particular concern internally in the first instance. That way, you can at least try and resolve the issue before it gets as far as the relevant authorities. An employee’s right to make protected disclosures under the Act will override any confidentiality obligations they might owe to you, so this makes it all the more important that they come to you first to try and sort out their concerns.

Breach of a legal obligation

The scope of protected disclosures is also wider than you probably think. Whilst it only covers reasonable and good faith beliefs relating to criminal offences, breaches of legal obligations, miscarriages of justice, dangers to health and safety and damage to the environment, it has been held that the breach of a legal obligation is wide enough to cover the breach of a legal obligation arising from an employee’s contract of employment i.e. in other words, a breach of contract. Take this into account when deciding whether your policy statement will apply to a particular situation.