Why do people blow the whistle in the public sector if they risk detriment following a disclosure?

The act of raising a concern based on actual or potential unethical, illegal or immoral acts is known as whistleblowing (Employment Rights Act, 1996). The UK public sector actively promotes and encourages whistleblowers to come forward to improve practice and safeguard vulnerable people, so much so that the Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care details that employees have a legal duty to raise concerns through the appropriate regulatory body (Department for Education, 2019) . Although employees within the public sector are well trained and understand the whistleblowing process, research has shown that concerns are often ignored, borne from fear of unfair treatment following whistleblowing. (Brown, 2008; Hassan, 2015; Palifka, 2015; Menzel, 1999) The motivation behind employees who do blow the whistle can vary, from suggestions that some employees are raising vexatious claims to detract from personal wrong doing through to individuals who have a strong sense of morality. (Griffith & Tengnah, 2011; Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016). It is currently estimated that 5.43 million people in the UK are employed within the public sector. Following allegations of corruption within the UK Government, the Committee on Standards in Public Life was set up in 1995. In the same year a bill was introduced to provide a framework for the raising of concerns that were of public interest. This was further enhanced and resulted in the Public Interest Disclosure Act. (Dehn & Calland, 2004).

Whistleblowers have three responsibilities that lead them to believe that a disclosure of wrong doing is an appropriate course of action; The desire to improve the organisation they work for, the belief that they have a duty to the wider society and their own individual moral compass (Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016; Wright, Hassan & Park, 2016). Whistleblowers are not typically from one area of a business or at a specific stage of their career although it could be suggested that someone with more experience and a more senior position has more access to information that could suggest wrong doing (Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016). Anyone has the ability to raise a concern if they have a genuine belief that wrong doing has already taken place or could potentially take place if there is no intervention. More recently there has been an increase of whistleblowing from individuals outside of an organisation (Ayers & Kaplan, 2005) who have been encouraged to highlight wrongdoing by offer of a monetary reward, such as the promotion across UK television broadcasters encouraging the public to report businesses using unlicensed software for a reward of up to £10,000 (Rose, Brink & Norman, 2016). Or perhaps from customers who are unhappy about the conduct of an organisation they have purchased products or received a service from, reporting their concerns to Watchdog (Bailey & Bonifield, 2010; Vermeir & Van Kenhove, 2008).

Whistleblowing is often broken down into two different types; the one-off whistleblowing from someone who has never done it before and is unlikely to do it again; the repeating whistleblower who may raise concerns on many occasions. (Smaili & Arroyo, 2017; Near & Miceli, 1985). Often a person who raises concerns multiple times can be seen as an instigator, looking to cause trouble and is not very dedicated to the organisation (Zhou et al, 2018). It could also be possible that perhaps an initial concern was ignored or an organisation failed to investigate fully resulting in an employee who is dissatisfied and so continues to speak out until positive action has taken place (Vandekerckhove & Lewis, 2011). The NHS has provided many examples of Line Managers or Senior Leaders choosing to disregard concerns raised from doctors and nurses, including cost saving exercises that resulted in deaths through to concerns of untrained staff that resulted in the deaths of potentially hundreds of patients (Mattu v University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, 2012). The question then becomes if illegal or unethical actions take place and a witness doesn’t report it, are they then also complicit in any potential wrong doing (Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016)?

There are many models of whistleblowing used to determine the stages and impact of whistleblowing, (Near & Miceli, 1995) suggest a 5 stage model which has been used as a basis for development by many others. The first stage describes that a whistleblower must be a witness to wrongdoing, the determination of actual wrongdoing could be different dependant on the judgement (Keenan & McLain, 1992) and emotional response experienced by an individual (Henik, 2015; Alleyne, Hudaib & Pike, 2013).The second stage is the consideration of what action to take to report the identified wrongdoing; at this point the whistleblower has many things to consider, whether to address their line manager, a more senior member of staff or perhaps a regulatory body (Taylor, 2018); Whether to remain anonymous and risk losing credibility or disclose who they are and risk retaliation (Kumagai, 2004; Miceli and Near, 1992) Whether they have access to sufficient, relevant evidence to back up their claim of wrongdoing and whether the release of this information is suitable. Thirdly the actual act of whistleblowing must take place, whether this be verbally to a Line Manager, a formal letter to a senior member of staff or to an external regulatory body.

The final two stages are based around the reaction from others and a whistleblowers perception of their treatment by a company and fellow colleagues (Miceli & Near, 1992). This perception can be complex as it is likely for someone to become more sensitised to behaviour that they previously would not have noticed or thought of any different than normal (O’Sullivan & Ngau, 2014). The feeling of ostracism can often be down to an individual’s sense of morality and the social commitment they feel towards a workplace (Chen & Lai, 2014; Vandekerckhove & Phillips, 2017). A whistleblower who feels it is there duty to raise a concern has to consider the risks, they may feel a sense of obligation and commitment towards their workplace although it is possible that some of their colleagues may be held to account for potential wrong doing (Ceva & Bocchiola, 2018). Over recent years there has been evidence to suggest that a company may retaliate against an employee who blows the whistle, the flexibility and interpretation of legislation can result in loopholes allowing unfair treatment to persist (Lee & Kleiner, 2011).

Whistleblowing is not a UK phenomenon, countries throughout the world have legislation and regulatory bodies designed to enable employees to raise concerns with the intention of improving business practice and preventing unethical behaviour. The United States of America set one of the earliest protections for whistleblowing in 1912 within the Lloyd-La Follette Act (Dunford & Devine, 1998) yet a recent US Pentagon whistleblower publicly stated that he was treated as though he had committed a crime by disclosing the truth. In Australia whistleblowers are routinely identified as a “dobber” (Dehn & Calland, 2004) whereas in South Africa prior to 1994 they would be called “impimpis” and risked facing a public death (Vandekerckhove, 2016). Norway protects whistleblowers in a variety of ways, firstly their Freedom of Speech Law enables anyone to express information or their own opinion. Secondly Norway have labour laws which places a duty on employees to highlight any concerns they have not only to their employer but also to any relevant regulator, this duty is further supported by employers being required to demonstrate that they have not treated any employee less favourably rather than a whistleblower having to provide evidence to support their accusation of unfair treatment. Whistleblowers in Norway also benefit from a highly unionised workforce and therefore may be able to gain additional support through their union and colleagues (Lewis & Trygstad, 2009).

In general it has been widely accepted that a whistleblower is often subject to detriment having formally raised concerns (Pope, 2015; Gao, Greenberg & Wong-On-Wing, 2014), this risk can pose a significant deterrent to raising a concern as the potential of a decrease or total loss of salary is likely to be an impossibility for many and so prevent any identification of potential illegal or unethical behaviour. It has been evidenced through Employment Tribunals that unfavourable treatment often takes place in many different forms, from the loss of a job, bullying from the accused member of staff through to victimisation from the employer. (Lewis & Vandekerckhove, 2016; Quade, Greenbaum & Petrenko, 2013) All employees in the UK are protected under the Employment Rights Act 1996 which affords a whistleblower protection from facing a detriment by allowing them to appeal to an Employment Tribunal if they believe they have been treated differently following whistleblowing (Griffith & Tengnah, 2011). The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) is the first stage of this process with the purpose to support and improve relationships within the workplace. ACAS is available to anyone in the UK to gain free advice and support including fact sheets and guidance around whistleblowing to both employee’s and employers (Ridley-Duff & Bennett, 2011; Dix & Barber, 2015). An All Party Parliamentary Group also exists to further research and develop whistleblowing legislation throughout the UK, with its primary aim to create an environment where whistleblowing is embraced as a societal and business benefit to help organisations improve and develop rather than be punished (APPG Whistleblowing, 2019). Trade unions are ideally situated to add further value to any future development of legislation and reporting process, having already gained significant experience in workplace conflict and relationships, union expertise could help shape whistleblowing for the future ensuring that it is a practice that benefits both employees and organisations (Lewis & Vandekerckhove, 2016)

In conclusion, it can be difficult to fully understand the motivation of a whistleblower, whether they have a genuine desire to improve the practices within a company they feel a close connection to, a general sense of morality or their disclosure is a malicious act to cover up personal poor behaviour or performance (Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016; Wright, Hassan & Park, 2016). Ultimately it would appear that the majority of whistleblowers are people that believe they are doing the right thing by highlighting illegal or unethical behaviour and are doing so with little regard to their own wellbeing compass (Perry, Hondeghem, & Wise, 2010). There does however appear to be clear documented evidence to suggest that whistleblowing can result in a range of unwanted behaviours and detriment (Brown, 2008; Hassan, 2015; Kumagai, 2004; Miceli and Near, 1992) and although legislation and policies exist to protect both the employee and employer, these may not go far enough to identify the benefits that whistleblowing can provide (Griffith & Tengnah, 2011). Norway has expanded legislation around whistleblowing to increase the protection available and provides a number of regulatory bodies that take an active approach to whistleblowing (Lewis & Trygstad, 2009). The UK public sector is best placed to be setting an example for best practice, with the current All Party Parliamentary Group Whistleblowing researching further steps that could be implemented to add strength to current legislation. Consideration should be taken as to whether the structure of regulated bodies in Norway could be duplicated in the UK, enabling both employees and employers to seek support to ensure any investigative process undertaken into concerns raised are completed fairly. This supported with the current significant reach of Trade Unions within the UK public sector would open opportunities for both employees and organisations to work towards more transparent whistleblowing processes and policies (Lewis & Vandekerckhove, 2016). Ultimately many current theories and models around whistleblowing suggest that due to the complexity of the process, further research needs to be undertaken to fully understand the impact of whistleblowing on individuals and organisations.