Consultation on employment tribunal claims and the Public Interest Disclosure Act

Consultation published by The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform View original »

Employment tribunals determine complaints made where claimants believe that they have suffered a detriment at work, or have been dismissed for making a protected disclosure ('whistleblowing') under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 ('PIDA'). The tribunals do not make any assessment of, or take any action on, the issue underlying the allegation, as these matters do not fall within their powers or area of expertise.

The issue of how allegations of underlying abuse in PIDA cases might be addressed was raised during the passage of the Employment Act 2008. Government committed to explore whether there was a practical process which would enable the substance of allegations giving rise to PIDA claims to the employment tribunals to be assessed and where appropriate acted upon, without involving the release of unsubstantiated allegations into the public domain. It was envisaged this would involve information being passed from the employment tribunals to the relevant regulators ('prescribed persons' under PIDA). This would mean that the regulator could take action where appropriate in accordance with their own practices and procedures. It would then be a matter for the regulator to address instances of unlawful, fraudulent or dangerous behaviour.

Timeframe

This consultation started on 3rd July 2009 and ended on 2nd October 2009.

Consultation Documents

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Hansard Mentions

This tab normally contains any mentions of this consultation that we could find in Hansard, the official record of what's said in Parliament. There are probably some mentions that we couldn't find -- MPs don't always use the full title of the consultation, which makes it hard to tell what they're talking about.

We haven't been able to find anything relevant for this consultation yet. If you're particularly interested in things that have been said in Parliament about this consultation, you might want to try searching TheyWorkForYou.com.

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