Issue - meetings

The Monitoring Officer introduced the annual whistleblowing report. He stated that, owing to a review of how such reports were communicated to Members, there had been no report seen by the Committee in 2019 however he could confirm that, as with the current report, there had been no whistleblowing activity during that period. He explained that the purpose of whistleblowing was to give officers a route of complaint outside of their line management, however, there had been no instances of this on which to report. He added that there were several procedures in place at the council which gave employees to opportunity to raise concerns before there would be any need to use the whistleblowing policy.

Members of the Committee praised the council for a cultural attitude of honesty, as had been noted in the recent Peer Review, although concerns were raised about the negative connotations of ‘whistleblowing’. It was acknowledged that there could be negative associations however, the terminology was widely used across all sectors of employment and the ethos of transparency at the council was credited with the lack of whistleblowing activity.

A Member of Committee noted that the need to share information could be more clearly identified, to ensure there was no expectation of confidentiality, and it was agreed this could be included at the next review of the policy.

RESOLVED that Members be assured that the Whistleblowing Policy in place was working effectively.