Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that civil servants who raise concerns about (a) misconduct, (b) political bias and (c) breaches of impartiality are protected from retaliation.

There are well established whistleblowing processes in place across government. Individual government departments are responsible for determining and setting their whistleblowing arrangements and procedures. In addition, the Civil Service Commission is an independent body that can hear and determine concerns by civil servants that relate to the Civil Service Code, where it has already been raised formally under the Code with the relevant Department. To ensure external reporting remains accessible, the Government regularly reviews the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 2014, which lists designated individuals and bodies, such as the National Audit Office, to whom a worker can make a whistleblowing disclosure.

The National Audit Office made four recommendations in the report following its investigation into whistleblowing in the Civil Service and the Public Accounts Committee made five recommendations in its subsequent report. The Cabinet Office has addressed these points and the recommendations have been completed. Neither report recommended setting up an independent external reporting mechanism. It is the Government’s position that an independent external reporting mechanism would be duplicative.

The full text of the reports are available online.

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/investigation-whistleblowing-civil-service.pdf

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmpubacc/457/report.html