Issue - meetings

That the updated policy be approved with the agreed amendments.

The Internal Audit Manager presented the updated Whistleblowing Policy reflecting changes suggested at the previous meeting of the Committee and checking against the National Audit Office checklist.  In providing clarification on the amendments to the policy, he advised that the approved version would be submitted to the Constitution Committee for endorsement prior to re-publishing on the Council’s Infonet site.

The Head of Legal & Democratic Services explained that the prominence given to the paragraph on the Council’s commitment to the policy reaffirmed the ethos to support and address any concerns raised.  He responded to a query from Mr. Paul Williams on the need for disclosures to be made in the public interest due to new legislation.

Mr. Williams felt that reference to the internal and external procedures should be shown earlier in the policy to clarify to the reader the options available.  The Head of Legal & Democratic Services agreed that this could be signposted in the document.  The Chief Executive emphasised the section in the policy which encouraged concerns to be raised, even if these were anonymous, and said that signposting should detail the internal procedure in the first instance, whilst also indicating the external procedure.

Councillor Glyn Banks felt that the internal procedure should be made more prominent than the external procedure to clarify the preferred route for consideration of these options.

The Head of Legal & Democratic Services said that the points raised would be taken on board and hoped that employees would be encouraged to raise concerns with their line manager rather than using the external route.

The Internal Audit Manager pointed out that the officer posts listed under the internal procedure section of the Policy would need to be updated to reflect the new structure.  It was also pointed out that names of Members of Parliament should be included in the list of relevant organisations recorded at the back of the policy.

RESOLVED:

That the updated policy be approved with the agreed amendments.