The UK's new whistleblowing rules: time to appoint a champion

Lydia Christie

Howard Kennedy

29 February 2016

October last year saw the publication by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) of new whistleblowing rules (i.e. rules to allow people at firms to inform the authorities about any rule-breaking they see without fearing for their jobs) that take effect on 7th September this year. In preparation for the new regime, every relevant financial service-provider must nominate a “whistleblowing champion” by 7th March to oversee the implementation of whistleblowing procedures and to ensure that his company obeys the rules.

Financial service firms affected by the new rules include UK deposit-takers with assets of £250 million or greater (including banks, building societies and credit unions), PRA-designated investment firms, insurance and reinsurance firms.

The whistleblowing champion’s responsibilities include:

ensuring and overseeing the integrity, independence and effectiveness of the firm’s whistleblowing policies and procedures on and associated policies to protect whistleblowers from being victimised because they have disclosed things that the Government considers 'reportable';
overseeing the firm's new arrangements; and
overseeing the preparation of an annual whistleblowing report to the board.

The types of reportable concerns and those who can report them are much broader under the new rules than under current whistleblowing law. It is likely that managers will require more specific training to recognise whistleblowing under the new rules and it will be the responsibility of the whistleblowing champion to ensure that this takes place. The new rules aim to encourage whistleblowing and to minimise managerial retaliation against whistleblowers. The Financial Conduct Authority will certainly be call a firm’s fitness and propriety into question if there is evidence of its retaliation against a whistleblower. Early preparation and training is highly recommended.