“We agree with the wider definition of whistleblowing to include groups particularly relevant to public safety and the public interest, such as patients, their families and foster carers looking after very vulnerable children, who currently may suffer retaliatory economic harm if they speak up but are not employees and thus are not protected by current law.
However, we feel the scope of the law and of any whistleblowing body should not be widened to the point of over burdening the system and affecting effectiveness.”
By Martin Morton @NitramNotrom, Clare Sardari @SardariClare and Minh Alexander
17 August 2020
The petition link:
Replace UK whistleblowing law and protect whistleblowers and the public
Background
In 2018 the twentieth anniversary of the notoriously weak UK whistleblowing law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), we were invited by Dr Philippa Whitford to produce a concise advisory paper on PIDA’s core weaknesses. This was to inform debate and feed into parliamentary work on this topic. This is the paper that we wrote:
Replacing the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA)
Chiefly, the paper fed into the Westminster Hall debate on 18 July 2018 led by Dr Philippa Whitford MP:
As evident from this transcript of the parliamentary debate, the UK government’s response was tepid.
Indeed, the government had already expressed scepticism about the new proposed EU whistleblowing directive, which was since become law.
Although the EU directive…
View original post 2,368 more words
