May 12, 2010
More than half of the UK’s businesses now have measures in place which allow whistleblowing employees to report fraud and other suspect activities, new research has revealed.
Grant Thornton UK LLP’s International Business Report (IBR) found that 54% of businesses have increased whistleblower support, an increase of 35% since 2009.
The survey of over 500 privately held businesses across the UK shows attitudes to whistleblowers are changing in the private sector and specialist hotlines for employees are also being embraced.
"This is good news as hotlines are an important safeguard for both companies and employees and are a key element in creating an ethical business culture,” commented Sterl Greenhalgh, Partner at Grant Thornton. “Equally, the FSA recently reported a doubling in the number of whistleblowers. This could be down to a number of reasons but, most likely, the rise is linked to the economic downturn, when fraud does tend to increase and become more apparent."
As the economy began to wear the signs of recession battles in recent years, the need for businesses to increase revenue to survive has lead to frequent instances of illegal practice. But Mr Greenhalgh claims employees have altered their opinions on “grassing” and should feel safe when doing the noble thing.
"Whistleblowers should know that they are currently protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 which protects against dismissal and discriminatory treatment providing the whistleblower has acted in good faith and has not gained personally from the disclosure," he added.
