Agenda item

The Council’s Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure protected all Council employees including contract workers and trainees making disclosures in the public interest and allowed such individuals to claim compensation for any victimisation following such disclosure.  The current policy and procedure had first been adopted by the Council in 1999 and reflected best practice at that time.  The document had been reviewed recently to update the internal and external contact points referred to therein; to give examples of malpractice/wrongdoing covered by the Policy and list the other existing employee policies and procedures which might be a more appropriate recourse for the employee to resolve a concern they might have.  The revised document also listed the responsibilities employees and managers of the Council had in relation to the Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure. 

During consideration of the revised Policy and Procedure the following issues were raised:-

·  That the procedure for raising a concern internally needed to be revised to take into account the possibility of the Monitoring Officer being the subject of or being personally involved in a whistleblowing matter.

·  If the intention was that after a concern had been reported the person handling the issue would as a matter of course write to the whistleblower summarising their concern and indicating how the matter would be dealt with, the procedure needed to reflect this and the last sentence in paragraph 9.1 needed to be amended by the deletion of the words “If you wish” at the start.

·  That the second sentence of paragraph 6.1 of the Policy should be amended so that it reads “the Council will view very seriously any false or malicious allegations …”

The Director of Law and Corporate Governance indicated that the revised Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure incorporating any amendments the Standards Committee might wish to make would be widely publicised through the Trade Union representatives and would also be the subject of consultation with the Corporate Management Team, Corporate Consultative Forum and the Employment and Appeals Committee before being referred back to the Committee for a final recommendation to the Council.

Resolved -   That the draft revised Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure now submitted, subject to the incorporation of the amendments set out above, be approved.