Issue - meetings

That the policy be re-drafted to reflect the comments made and submitted to a future meeting of the Committee.

The Internal Audit Manager presented the updated Whistleblowing Policy for review and approval by the Committee prior to submission to the Constitution Committee later in the day.  He explained the need to update the policy in line with changes to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (June 2013) as referred to in the report.

In response to a query from the Chair, the Head of Legal & Democratic Services said that the previous requirement was that employees made disclosures in good faith about their intentions and must not be motivated by malice.  The change that disclosures must be reasonably believed to be in the public interest added an extra dimension.

The Chair felt that Members should be included on the list of individuals within the policy to whom an employee could raise any concerns.  The Democracy & Governance Manager explained that there was a set procedure for Members who wished to raise concerns.  The Head of Legal & Democratic Services said that Members were able to pass on any issues to the four named officers who were solely responsible for carrying out investigations on behalf of the Council.  Following a request by the Chair for this to be incorporated in the policy, the Democracy & Governance Manager said that this would be brought to the attention of the Constitution Committee.

Ms. Amanda Hughes of the Wales Audit Office (WAO) referred to the section of the policy relating to independent advice and external contacts in which it was stated that the Auditor General for Wales was able to receive whistleblowing disclosures directly from employees.  She explained that the Auditor General was a prescribed person, along with others, within the Act and that in encouraging employees to use the policy, they should be aware of their rights under the Act and a full list of prescribed persons, or link to where this was available should be included in the policy.  In relation to the change that individuals who made a disclosure must believe their concerns to be true and in the public interest, there was caselaw which reflected the need to avoid individuals undertaking their own investigative work.  The reason for the inclusion of criteria 'in the public interest' was as a result of cases in the banking industry where the Act was used to bring to light some issues of personal interest.

Mr. John Herniman of WAO felt that there were some inconsistencies in the policy such as the section on ‘definition’ which indicated the requirement for concerns to be raised internally.  Whilst employees should be encouraged to use the internal process, disclosures could also be made to those defined by the Act as ‘Prescribed Persons’ and individuals could also make a wider disclosure to the press, media or to an MP which should be made clear in the policy.  On the section entitled ‘Protection’, he felt it should be clarified that an individual was afforded the same level of protection, whether they raised their concerns internally or externally, as long as the individual  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84