Agenda item

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

The Audit and Procurement Committee considered a report of the Director of Finance and Resources (Section 151 Officer) that provided a summary of the concerns raised under the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy during 2024-25 along with the Council’s response to the issues, including any organisational learning to prevent similar reoccurrences.

Whistleblowing was the making of a protected disclosure as found in Part IVA of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (and as amended by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998) and was reflected in the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy 2017. This qualified employees (including agency workers) for legal protection against detriment or unfair dismissal if they made a disclosure in the public interest. To qualify, the disclosure must also fall within one of the following grounds: a criminal offence; breach of any legal obligation; miscarriages of justice; danger to health and safety; damage to the environment; and the deliberate concealing of information about any of these grounds. The Council’s Whistleblowing Policy was clear that all concerns raised about actual or potential misconduct or wrongdoing in the Council were taken seriously. Matters relating to fraud and corruption were considered by the Chief Internal Auditor and all other concerns which fell under one of the grounds were considered by the Council’s Monitoring Officer.

The report provided a summary of the concerns raised under the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy during 2024-25 and the Council’s response to the issues and was presented to the Audit and Procurement Committee in order to discharge its responsibility, as reflected in its terms of refence “to monitor Council policies on whistleblowing and the fraud and corruption strategy”. In order to protect the confidentiality of whistleblowers and other parties involved, no information was included in the report that could lead to the identification of a whistleblower or the subject of the whistleblowing or compromise the confidentiality of an on-going investigation.

During 2024-25, the Council received ten whistleblowing disclosures. Of these,  three disclosures were made by a third party and as such, the legal protection afforded to employees who raise concerns did not extend to these individuals. However, the Council considered that any disclosure made by members of the public should be treated in the same way as disclosures made by employees and consequently had made every reasonable effort to protect all individuals under the whistleblowing process. Further, four disclosures did not satisfy the grounds for whistleblowing as they did not relate to one of the prescribed concerns required in order to qualify under the Council’s policy.  In such cases, the individual was advised of the appropriate route to raise their concern. A summary of the disclosures made by type and service area, and a summary of the responses to the disclosures were detailed in tables in the report.

Employees were able to resolve matters using other routes if they wished to do so, for example through discussion with their line manager or reporting concerns to one of the “prescribed persons” set out in the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 2014, such as the Health and Safety Executive.

Where appropriate, responsible officers would identify learning points from any issues raised and ensure that they were acted upon to prevent similar issues recurring. If required, this included consideration of whether there were any systematic improvement actions for the wider organisation. In one case considered in 2024-25, management action was agreed. Whilst these actions were specific to the concerns raised, rather than organisation-wide improvements, opportunities to learn from disclosures would continue to be considered as part of the investigation process.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Procurement Committee, notes the summary of whistleblowing concerns raised during 2024-25 and confirms its satisfaction with the actions taken to respond to the issues raised.