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Damning Report Exposes DTI Secrecy in Whistleblowing Cases
13 September 2005
The Department of Trade and Industry has been attacked by the Parliamentary Ombudsman for the way it handled requests for information from a whistleblowing charity. The DTI will pay compensation to Public Concern at Work, after a five-year legal battle.Public Concern at Work says that the regulations create a genuine risk that another Dr Shipman, Enron or immigration fiasco could continue undetected even where staff have spoken out. As the DTI's regulations keep secret all information about cases that settle before hearing, the charity warns that "they encourage dangerous and fraudulent employers to buy off the whistleblower and cover-up their wrongdoing".
In order to illustrate this danger, the charity made reference to Lingard v The Prison Service, a case recently championed by Russell Jones and Walker. The Prison Service were ordered to pay out almost half a million pounds in compensation, and its Director General went on record to apologise stating that lessons needed to be learned.
The story was covered in the broadsheet media by The Telegraph, The Financial Times and The Times. The Public Concern at Work press release is available online at http://www.pcaw.co.uk/news/press_32.htm
Whistleblowing