Agenda item

The Committee considered a report which outlined proposed revisions to the Council’s Whistleblowing Blowing Policy and procedures following a review and sought approval of the revisions.

The Policy had been reviewed following the Council’s adoption of the Cooperative

Party’s ‘Charter Against Modern Slavery’, approved by Cabinet at its meeting on 30th June 2020. In line with the Charter requirements it was recommended that the Whistleblowing Policy made explicit reference to modern slavery, as set out at paragraph 6 of the report and section 2.12 of the Policy, respectively.  It was noted that Councils across the political spectrum had signed up to the Charter to ensure exploitation has no place in their supply chains.

The Co-operative Party's Charter against Modern Slavery goes further than existing law and guidance, committing councils to proactively vetting their own supply chain to ensure no instances of modern slavery are taking place.

A further proposed change to the existing Policy was the addition of a paragraph at section 5.3, regarding ‘Anonymous Allegations and Confidentiality’ to make clear that where whistle blowers wished to remain anonymous, whilst their wishes would be respected, it would be useful for them to provide a means of contact that did not reveal their identity, but would allow for further information to be obtained.

It was noted that should the revisions to the Whistleblowing Policy be approved, the Monitoring Officer would email staff to advise of the changes and the process to follow if staff wished to raise concerns.

In response to a query regarding how many people to date had used the Policy, Helen Potts, Principal Legal Officer advised that during the last year there had been three whistleblowing complaints, one from a member of staff and two from members of the public. Members were reminded that the annual report of the Monitoring Officer submitted to the Committee in June had a section on whistleblowing activity.

During further discussion, in answer to a question regarding benchmarking, Members were advised that benchmarking had been carried out with neighbouring authorities and beyond to measure the effectiveness of the whistleblowing policy.  It was noted that Barnsley in 2019 received 6 whistleblowing complaints and 4 in 2020; Sheffield recorded 8 complaints between 2014-2017; Manchester from March 2017-2018, received 28 complaints, which had reduced to 12 in 2018-2020. 36 whistleblowing complaints had been reported in Leeds in July 2019. Rotherham whistleblowing report was exempt and consequently information was not available.

The Committee in noting the low numbers of whistleblowing disclosures in Doncaster considered the Policy to be effective but, felt that this should be continued to be monitored.

Reference was made to paragraph 8 of the report, regarding the whistleblowing training course on the training portal and clarity was sought as to whether training on the whistleblowing policy was mandatory, optional, or for line managers only.  Members asked if whistleblowing was covered as part of an employee’s induction, or was this communicated to staff via email.  It was noted that the whistleblowing training was not mandatory for staff, but awareness of the Policy and training was communicated to staff via email.

With reference to paragraph 7 of the Policy regarding how staff could raise concerns and the process to follow in raising such concerns, a Member queried whether the Policy should be strengthened to reinforce the point that where a complaint could not be resolved informally or, at line manager level, it would be dealt with by the Head of Service, or Director. It was reported that previously not all whistleblowing complaints were considered at a local level, but had not been dealt with appropriately, therefore, it had been decided that complaints should be referred to the named senior officers in the policy who would determine who would deal with the complaint on a case by case basis. The presentation of information to highlight the number of times the Policy had been used had been revised to ensure that statistics were presented in a clearer format.

Further to a question from the Chair, the Principal Legal Officer advised that she was not aware of any local authority reporting disclosures under the whistleblowing policy concerning Modern Slavery in respect of suppliers and third party contractors.

In response to a question regarding how staff who don’t have access to a computer, were able to have access to the Whistleblowing Policy, Members were informed that staff could speak to their line manager, or Human Resources to get a paper copy of the policy.  During subsequent discussion, Members requested that arrangements be put in place for those staff working in directorates who don’t have access to a computer, to receive briefings on the Whistleblowing Policy in order to raise awareness.  The Principal Legal Officer undertook to raise this matter with the Monitoring Officer and the Assistant Director of Human Resources.

In answer to a question regarding raising awareness and staff having an understanding of and confidence in the whistleblowing complaints process, the Principal Legal Officer stated that it may be appropriate to include questions to address this as part of the next staff survey, and undertook to raise this issue with the Assistant Director of Human Resources. It was noted that all complaints under whistleblowing were reported to this Committee in the Monitoring Officer’s annual report. 

Following a further question, it was noted that awareness of the Whistleblowing Policy was not raised at staff ‘one to one’ meetings.

Arising from subsequent discussion with regard to the low number of whistleblowing complaints from staff and the importance of raising awareness of the whistleblowing policy to all staff across the Council, it was agreed that when the Monitoring Officer send the email reminder to staff about the whistleblowing complaints process that Trade Unions be included in the email distribution, in order that as many employees are captured as far as possible.

The Chair on behalf of the Committee thanked the Principal Legal Officer for the presentation of the report.

RESOLVED

(1)      to note and endorse the revisions to the proposed Whistleblowing Policy;

(2)      that arrangements be put in place for those staff with no computer access to be briefed on the Whistleblowing Policy;

(3)      in order to raise awareness of the Whistleblowing Policy, consideration be given to including this in the next staff survey; and

(4)      the Monitoring Officer send an email to all staff and relevant Trade Unions regarding the Whistleblowing Policy