Outdated whistleblowing policies leave utilities exposed

A whistleblowing expert has warned that many utilities appear to have out of date whistleblowing information for staff which could leave them vulnerable.

The warning was issued by a speaker at Utility Week’s HR Forum in Birmingham yesterday.

Wendy Addison, an international whistleblowing expert, said that a review of a wide selection of utility company websites and financial reports showed that many are hosting outdated employee information about the process of invoking whistleblowing law.

Addison identified several examples of instances where whistleblowing policies were dated 2010. “The laws have changed fundamentally since then,” she said.

“The problem with this is that if your whistleblowing information for your organisation isn’t up to date and you have an employee that decides to blow the whistle externally – to the regulator for example, or to the media or their MP – the law is on the side of the whistleblower because they can show that the information on the website, references to the code of conduct and the company ethics message were completely out of date.

As well as leaving utilities exposed legally, the existence of long outdated policies suggests a lack of commitment to being transparent and ethical businesses Addison added.

“If you can’t keep up to date with these very significant issues – are you encouraging a speak-up culture? Are you encouraging transparency?” she asked. “Or are you really saying ‘I don’t really want you to worry too much about this.’”

In addition to hosting outdated information, Addison said that her review of utility processes for supporting whistleblowers showed generally poor practice in the sector.

In too many instances she said the steps an employee should take to raise concerns about unethical behaviours were vague and “unengaging”. She advocated issuing clear contact information for specific individuals with responsibility for listening top and escalating concerns, rather than talking about non-specific lines of reporting.

According to statistics from the charity Public Concern at Work, which offer advice and support to whistleblowers, very few concerns are raised about utility company misdemeanours. In 2014-2015 calls concerning utilities accounted for just 2 per cent of calls made to the charity – a total of 16 calls.

Addison said however that this low number should not be cause for complacency in the sector. While it would be easy to assume that it shows utilities are “getting it right” in supporting transparency “in reality it could be that you are doing everything wrong and that’s why no one is asking any questions.”