FOI - Whistleblowing data

Published • Last Updated

Ref No.: 14 20

Request Type: FOI

Date Received: 10/08/2020

Date Responded: 26/08/2020

Category: Whistleblowing

Request

I set out below requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000/Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002:

  1. Does your Organisation take action to protect external whistleblowers from unjustified treatment by their employers or others?
  2. Does any protection against unjustified treatment provided by your organisation extend to persons reporting on behalf of external whistleblowers?
  3. Does any protection extend to proposed or intended unjustified action against an external whistleblower contemplated by his/her employer or another in respect of the disclosure?
  4. Does your organisation offer any reward or bounty for information received from an external whistleblower in respect of information about which you are the prescribed body or person?
  5. Does your organisation publish for the public a step by step guide on how it follows up on external whistleblower information?
  6. Where your organisation does not feel itself to be legally competent to engage with a disclosure made by an external whistleblower, do you have a policy and process to refer that disclosure to another prescribed body/person/regulator or other agency better placed to deal with it?
  7. Where in the circumstances described in Q6 above, your organisation passes information to another prescribed body etc., do you have a policy and process to advise the external whistleblower that the disclosure has been passed to another body etc?
  8. Where an external whistleblower may be dissatisfied with his/her dealings with your organisation, is there an appeals policy and process which engage someone who is independent of the investigating department?
  9. Does your organisation publish FAQ to advise and assist external whistleblowers considering making a disclosure to you?
  10. Does all your staff which communicates with or otherwise manages external whistleblowers receive specialist and on-going training for that purpose?
  11. Where, following a disclosure to your organisation by an external whistleblower about a matter for which you are prescribed, an alleged act of retaliation occurs against the external whistleblower by the employer or another person, does your organisation investigate the alleged act of retaliation?
  12. Please describe what criteria you consider in deciding whether to investigate information received from an external whistleblower about a matter in respect of which you are prescribed?
  13. Does your organisation distinguish between public complaints and disclosures from external whistleblowers?
  14. Apart from any information on your website, does your organisation undertake any public awareness programme(s) regarding whistleblowing?
  15. In respect of Article 5(c)(ii), Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017, please disclose any and all reports (suitably redacted, where appropriate) which describe how disclosures from workers in other organisations (not your Organisation) have impacted on your Organisation’s ability to perform its functions and meet its objectives during the reporting periods 2017 – 18, 2018 – 19, 2019 – 20.

Response

We responded by answering ‘no’ to every question, with the exception of Q12 and Q15 which were not applicable.

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