- a criminal offence has been committed, is being committed or is likely to be committed;
- a person has failed, is failing or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation to which he is subject;
- a miscarriage of justice has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur;
- the health or safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered;
- the environment has been, is being or is likely to be damaged, or
- information tending to show any matter falling within any one of the preceding paragraphs has been, or is likely to be, deliberately concealed'.
Whistle stop
3 mins read
The law affords special protection to workers who blow the whistle on certain forms of wrongdoing. Vanessa Webster gives an overview of the
legislation and explains how employers can avoid being caught in the blast
The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) gives two levels of employment protection. First, it protects workers from being penalised on the ground that they have made a protected disclosure. Second, it renders an employee's dismissal automatically unfair if the reason for the dismissal is that he has made a protected disclosure.
While employees normally need a year's continuous service in order to bring a claim for unfair dismissal, there is no length of service requirement for this type of claim. As such, bringing a claim under PIDA can be an attractive option for those who do not have a sufficient period of qualifying employment to bring a claim of ordinary unfair dismissal. In addition, the usual financial cap on the compensatory award does not apply to such an automatically unfair dismissal, so successful claims can cost the employer dearly.
The first thing to understand is what constitutes a protected disclosure. First, there has to be a qualifying disclosure (QD) -- described as 'any disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the worker making the disclosure, tends to show one or more of the following, that:
