Facts about blowing whistle-blowing

Let me highlight for your readers a couple of points that were not clear from your article.

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 protects any worker who makes a disclosure about their employer's malpractice.

Employers do not have to introduce whistle-blowing polices. The Act covers all workers anyway.

But it does benefit employers to introduce their own policies, and UNISON encourages them to do so. The union has spoken to the council about the fine print of their policy, and we are satisfied with the outcome.

You mention the interesting case of Rita Freedman, the city archivist who blew the whistle on plans that had not gone through a proper consultation process. Rita was taken to task for alerting all 53 councillors to this.

She can argue that the Public Interest Disclosure Act entitled her to do so, because there was no other obvious channel to use to bring these facts to light.

If the whistle-blowing policy had been in place in the summer when all this happened, it would have provided Rita with an approved channel for her concerns, and would have avoided embarrassment for the council.

There is a lesson here for all employers.

You say that council employees are forbidden to express their concerns to the press. This is not quite true. There will be times where a disclosure to the press would be protected under the Act.

Finally, a word to any reader who is thinking of blowing the whistle using the protection of the Act.

It is important that you seek advice first.

The best place to get this advice would be from your trade union.

Peter Household,

General Convenor,

UNISON York City Branch,

Museum Street, York.

...Call me cynical if you will, but City of York Council's brave new charter for whistle-blowers looks to me like a recipe for hush-up.

If officers detect any of the criminal activities listed in the report, I should expect them to inform the police immediately.

Maladministration on that scale would be enough to stir even an Ombudsman into action.

All this has nothing whatsoever to do with the case of archivist Rita Freedman, and the extraordinary verdict of "insubordination" meted out by the Court of Swinegate.

On the contrary, the case demonstrates the mischief that can be done in local government without any law being broken.

What is lacking in local government is a truly independent tribunal. But if our council is bent on still more self-regulation, let it be in the recognition that an officer's first duty is not to colleagues or clients, but to residents.

William Dixon Smith,

Welland Rise,

Acomb,

York.

...YOU, the press, are cordially not invited to the City of York's Whistle-blowers Festival Concert held behind closed office doors on unspecified dates.

Line (dancing?) managers and employees will be hopping and blowing that ever-popular pantomime favourite 101 Damned Notions to the inaudible sound of their dog whistles!

Dale Minks,

Ancress Walk,

York.