Recent announcements made by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) have revealed big changes are ahead for how whisteblowing is dealt with within the financial industry.

The key change introduced by the FCA involves lenders and insurers will now being monitored by financial industry watchdogs who they must report to with information on any case they face that involves whistleblowing.

This method has the purpose of assisting whistleblowers with the difficult task of speaking out against employers while acting as a reminder to the major banks that the FCA is going to get tougher on the wide-scale industry corruption of recent years, such as Barclays’ effort to alter Libor Rates in 2012; a move that resulted in a swift fine of £290 million for the bank.

However, the FCA have been keen to point out that the recently announced changes are not intended to punish the banking sector, but to instead “build on and formalise the good practice already widespread in the financial services industry”.

This new whistleblowing legislation will also call for individual companies throughout the financial sector to appoint a “whistleblowing champion”; an official who will encourage employees to come forward with any issue they feel strongly about without fear of reprisal from their employers.

These new changes are due to come into effect in September 2016, and all businesses within the financial sector must alter their whistleblowing policies in accordance with these rules before that date. The new policies will apply to banks, deposit-takers, building societies and credit unions with assets greater than £250m. All insurers legally bound by the Solvency II directive will also have to comply to the new rules.

Since the recent announcement of new whistleblowing legislation there has been some speculation that the FCA is likely to soon introduce a further policy that will grant employees the chance to be paid for the whistleblowing information they provide at tribunals.

Such financial reward is already a long-held custom in the United States where the Securities and Exchange Commission provides financial compensation for any claim that results in a successful legal result against a business. This has often been known to generate hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of financial aid for the claimant.

Yearly whistleblowing reports

As part of a joint statement recently issued, the FCA and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority announced that all companies affected by the changes will need to draft an annual whistleblowing report for the benefit of the company boards concerned, with a senior management official present to ensure that all actions are made in accordance with the new legislation.

Financial industry regulators have recently again voiced their support for whisteblowing laws by announcing they will do more to make UK employees aware of their rights in regards to existing whisteblowing laws. Whistleblowers have always been an integral part of revealing dishonest actions within UK employment.

An increase In whistleblowing cases

The FCA’s changes have been issued during a period when whistleblowing claims have risen sharply across all areas of the UK financial sector. During 2014/15 a total of 1,240 whistleblowing disclosures were recorded within the financial sector; a 28% increase over 2013/14 results when 1,040 claims were made. When these figures are compared to the results of 2007/08, when just 138 claims were recorded, the sheer significance of this rise becomes apparent.

A recent report concerning the ostracising of a former United Nations worker who reported the rape of a refugee in Sri Lanka is just one of many recent legal controversies to hit the UN.

Ms Caroline Hunt-Matthes has been involved in a decade long legal struggle against UN officials on grounds that her disclosure about the refugee resulted in her sudden dismissal from her position while on a period of planned leave.

Ms Hunt-Matthes has explained her concerns regarding the UN’s treatment of whistleblowers: “The bottom line is the UN is not a safe working environment at the minute. You can’t report misconduct and be protected”.

UN ethics in response to employee complaints was recently the subject of a study by the Government Accountability Project (GAP). The study, conducted in July 2014, found that a total of 447 separate complaints were issued by UN employees due to concerns about how they were treated by the UN after speaking out.

For this study, GAP examined 135 of the 447 cases and concluded that at least fourteen of the claims were genuine and resulted in negative treatment towards the whistleblower by the UN.

This shockingly high number of claims was criticised by GAP’s International Director, Bea Edwards, who claimed the number of whistleblowers receiving efficient support from the UN is “abysmally low”. She explained that the GAP now plans to assess many other recent cases of whistleblower discrimination which were not dealt with efficiently.

Other recent accusations concerning corruption within the UN has involved incidents of violence perpetrated by soldiers while on peacekeeping missions. This includes acts of rape and exploitation that sometimes involve children.

One shocking case comes from a report issued by Amnesty International. It details the killing of a 16-year-old boy and the rape of a 12-year-old girl by peacekeepers from the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission while on a Central African Republic peacekeeping mission.

The report alleges that the primary reason that actions like those of this case were covered up is because the countries involved in such crimes want to hide the behaviour of their soldiers from the rest of the world.

There is an implied threat from some nations that if their soldiers are named the country will pull its troops out of UN peacekeeping missions, thus depleting the status of the UN as a global military alliance.

Numerous horrific claims of violence by UN soldiers has led to much criticism of the UN, and has moved the organisation’s secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, to announce that any nation whose soldiers have been found to have committed crimes like these will have their troops put on trial.

He also stated that the UN’s preventing sexual violence at the hands of peacekeepers was “a number one priority” and international observers that these recent cases have not been ignored.

Kids Company has experienced further problems this week due to an unidentified whistleblower making allegations about £10,000 of the charity’s money vanishing from the charity’s Urban Academy Centre branch in Southwark back in 2012.

The whistleblower claims the event was hushed up with no effort getting made to locate the missing money. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the whistleblower stated that although the police were called over the incident nothing came of the investigation. The money in question is believed to have been funded by both the public and through private donations.

The unidentified ex-employee also says that he and other staff at the Urban Academy Centre had suspicions over the behaviour of a certain supporter who was regarded as one of Kids Company’s ‘favoured clients’ because this person was present at the Southwark centre the day the money went missing. Explaining the situation the whistleblower remarked: “everyone knew it was him and nothing came of it”.

The whistleblower also claimed that the alleged money was just part of the ‘chaos’ that existed within the popular charity managed by founder Camila Batmanghelidjh. These claims are just the top of the iceberg for Kids’ Company which is facing a string of allegations ranging from donations being misspent to horrific acts of child abuse, exploitation and sexual offences occurring within the charity across the UK.

Ms Batmanghelidjh’s image as a leading figure in UK child care has been damaged substantially since the charity’s recent collapse. She has been widely derided by both the public and the press as rumours of her being complicit in the corruption continue to spread. Defending herself from blame, Ms Batmanghelidjh has accused “rumour-mongering civil servants, ill-spirited ministers and the media” for turning her into a scapegoat.

Ms Batmanghelidjh is also facing claims that she met with leading Tory party donor James Lupton to secure funds to keep Kids’ Company afloat once it became clear the charity was facing financial ruin. However, Lupton refutes any assertion that he was part of a decision to ignore the advice of civil servants and grant the charity a £3 million bail-out one week before its problems were made public on August 5th.

Kids Company has not yet issued a statement responding to the claims made by the unidentified whistleblower.

A former nurse has won a huge compensation claim at an employment tribunal in Exeter.

Clare Sardari, 57, will receive £230,000 in damages from South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust after a judge agreed she was ‘bullied, threatened and intimidated’ by her superiors in an effort to prevent her whistleblowing about her boss Dr Paula Vasco-Knight’s decision to promote her own daughter’s boyfriend to the role of Diversity Manager without him having fairly obtained the position.

Ms Sardari made the whistleblowing claim alongside colleague, Penny Gates, 53. Together they took their concerns to senior employee, Adrienne Murphy, who responded that the pair should expect to lose their jobs ‘through dirty means’ if they did not stop asking questions.

The tribunal ruled that Ms Sardari was made to feel alienated for making the claim which led her to suffer detriment as a result. The actions of Dr Vasco-Knight also came under scrutiny at the tribunal as she was proven to have deliberately tried preventing the release of materials showing her wrongdoing. Although Dr Vasco-Knight denied all of these claims, she then abruptly resigned from her position at Torbay hospital in Devon shortly afterwards.

At the tribunal Dr Vasco-Knight claimed that Ms Sardari’s whisteblowing had all the hallmarks of a personal attack rather than an effort being made to correct a genuine wrong. In a statement she claimed “on a personal level I found the allegations as nothing less than personal slander and I wonder if a white middle-class male chief executive officer would have been treated with such disrespect.”

Ms Sardari left the Tribunal in tears following the ruling and refused to make any comment. Her colleague and fellow whistleblower, Mrs Gates, has returned to work at Torbay hospital under a separate settlement.

The tribunal ruling

Tribunal judge Nick Roper awarded Ms Saradi £228,000 in compensation; a figure that covers her back pay and pension benefits along with the legal costs and agreed damages she incurred.

The full amount will be paid by South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which Dr Vasco-Knight was the chief executive of before her resignation. Her peers at the Trust paid tribute to her by releasing a statement about her time with the organisation shortly after the ruling which said “considerable success was achieved during her tenure. It is unfortunate her achievements have been overshadowed by the tribunal judgement”.

Describing the ruling, tribunal judge Nick Roper explained:

“We find that there was a concerted effort by the South Devon Healthcare Trust to manipulate the investigation, accuse the claimants of malice, suppress the report and to mislead the other parties as to its contents, with the apparent aim of protecting Dr Vasco-Knight and Mrs Murphy against the force of the claimant’s allegations […] This was completely contrary to the protection which they should have been offered under the Whistleblowing guidelines.”

A whistleblowing nurse recently brought her employers to an employment tribunal, seeking compensation for her suffering from stress related health problems due to being intimidated into resigning from her position.

The case dates back to when Ms Bernadette Rochford launched a whistleblowing case against the Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG); questioning the means by which NHS funding is sanctioned in regards to patient cases.

Ms Rochford made these claims once learning that no system exits to record the number of patients in receipt of financial help from the NHS. She noted this after she took on the position of Clinical Comm for Southwark PCT in April 2011.

Once Ms Rochford’s concerns came to light it became clear that the NHS was actually caring for some patients without reason. Shockingly this included ongoing financial support for patients who are now deceased. Based on her research Ms Rochford gave a “best guesstimate” that two thirds of deceased patients were still receiving financial aid.

Result of her whistleblowing

After speaking out Ms Rochford states that she became the target of bullying and racial harassment, which made her feel she had no choice but to resign from her position with Southwark CCG following a period of sick leave caused by her experiences.

During her sick leave, Ms Rochford was referred to fifteen separate councillors and health professionals, all of which agreed she was suffering serious stress related illness due to the treatment she experienced.

Ms Rochford’s claims of harassment and racial discrimination were initially dismissed at employment tribunal in October 2014; leading her to apply for a second hearing.

During her tribunal earlier this month, Ms Rochford claimed she felt like she was “walking on eggshells” at work due to the treatment from colleagues, and lambasted the lack of support she received from the NHS while complaining about the level of technical formalities required of her in order to demonstrate her feelings to NHS officials.

Defence against claims

Ms Rochford’s case was disputed by witness Alison Rayman, who worked with Ms Rochford as a HR consultant. Although Ms Rayman concurred that these claims had been slow in getting acknowledged, she believes much of the delay is due to Ms Rochford’s absence when on sick leave, as well as being due to the sheer number of people involved in the case

Ms Rochford’s claim of experiencing harassment and racial discrimination as a result of whisteblowing was rejected at an earlier tribunal in October 2014, causing her to request a second tribunal hearing this year.

Southwark CCG have disputed Ms Rochford’s statement that she received little support, stating that her grievances were “fully investigated at the time” and that “an independent investigation recognised that all issues were being addressed and effective systems were in place.”

This second tribunal in May 2015 lasted for five days and concluded before a decision could be made. The case will be now be reviewed on September 14^th 2015.