What is whistleblowing?
Whistleblowing is when somebody reports alleged wrongdoing within an organisation. The law protects whistleblowers from detrimental treatment (eg dismissal) for raising concerns about matters they reasonably believe to be in the public interest.
Am I protected?
Most protections from whistleblowing exist in the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Under these provisions, you are protected from victimisation if you are:
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a 'worker'
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making a 'qualifying disclosure' (ie you reveal information of the right type)
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making a 'protected disclosure' (ie you disclose the alleged wrongdoing to a prescribed person and in the right way)
Workers
To qualify for protection, you must be a worker. This includes employees, agency workers, and people not employed by but undergoing training with an organisation (eg student nurses and midwives doing work experience as part of their training).
Qualifying disclosures
A qualifying disclosure is a disclosure that you reasonably believe is in the public interest, and which communicates that the alleged wrongdoing is happening, has happened, or will happen. The types of wrongdoing covered include:
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criminal offences
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failure to comply with a legal obligation or law
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miscarriages of justice
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threats to people's health and safety
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sexual harassment
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damage to the environment
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attempts to cover up any of the above
Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, sexual harassment is a qualifying disclosure for the purposes of whistleblowing. This means workers who report sexual harassment are now formally recognised as whistleblowers, provided they believe the report is in the public interest.
You may not be protected if you break another law in blowing the whistle, for example, when you've signed the Official Secrets Act 1989 as part of your Employment contract. However, under the Employment Rights Act 2025, any clause (eg confidentiality clauses) in settlement agreements, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), or contracts will be considered void (ie invalid) if they prevent employees or workers from disclosing any case of harassment or discrimination, as well as any response provided by the employer in relation to such harassment or discrimination.
Protected disclosures
You must make a disclosure to a prescribed person, and in the right way, in order to be protected. You must also reasonably believe that the information you wish to reveal is substantially true.
You can make the disclosure:
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to your employer
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through procedures authorised by your employer, which are usually found in your employer's Grievance procedure. It is also worth checking your Employment contract, which may set out a process to help you make a disclosure. Alternatively, your employer may have a Whistleblowing policy in place outlining to whom you should make any disclosures and how
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to the person responsible for the area of concern (eg a health and safety officer for concerns about health and safety)
Under certain circumstances, you can also make disclosures:
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to your legal adviser
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to a government minister
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to others (eg a professional standards body), although there are different rules as to when disclosures will be protected here (eg you must not be acting for personal gain). For more information on this complicated area, Ask a lawyer
Exceptional failures
If you believe that you are blowing the whistle on an exceptionally serious failure in your workplace, you can publicly blow the whistle straight away. It must be a matter of fact that something is an exceptionally serious failure; your opinion alone is not enough (eg there could be an exceptionally serious health and safety failure that is putting people's lives at risk).
What happens if I lose my job for whistleblowing?
If you are an employee and covered by the whistleblowing protections, you can make a claim for unfair dismissal. You don't need a minimum service length in order to do this, as whistleblowing dismissal claims are automatically unfair.
If you are not an employee but covered by the whistleblowing protections, you can take your case to an employment tribunal and claim that you have suffered 'detrimental treatment' (eg you were subjected to unfair treatment, harassment, or victimisation) as a result of blowing the whistle.
From October 2026, the time limit for bringing most whistleblowing or harassment claims to an employment tribunal increases from three months to six months.
Do not hesitate to Ask a lawyer, if you have any questions or concerns about whistleblowing. For employers, it is a good idea to adopt a clear Whistleblowing policy.
