Edna's Law is needed to protect vulnerable people but also the general public in everyday life.
Everyone is Edna whether they know it or not.
Whistleblowing in NHS or care gets a lot of media coverage but Edna's Law applies to all sectors.
CIJ Summer heard this panel of whistleblowers:
Terry Bryan of Winterbourne View,
Margy Haywood - Panorama "Undercover Nurse"
Eileen Chubb of the BUPA Seven
(We are trying to obtain the video which is currently offline)
Money Matters....... to whom?
Edna's Law provides for appropriate compensation to the whistleblower.
It is important to note that this is not the same as "rewards, bounties or incentives" being proposed by other organisations and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing which has WBUK/Georgina Halford-Hall as the secretariat.
Please see "Misconduct of WBUK" and ex-Co-Chair Norman Lamb's letters about why he resigned from that APPG,
citing his fundamental belief "in transparency and being accountable to the public who ask questions"
because Georgina Halford-Hall refused to answer his questions on finance put by a concerned third party.
What did the rest of the APPG do? Complete silence. No mention of his resignation or questions on APPG or WBUK websites.
Our concerns about the conduct of this APPG and of WBUK in breaching various regulations are being pursued with
the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.
A genuine whistleblower's motivation is always to stop wrongdoing and risk -
they don't stand around thinking "How much money will I get if I report this?"
The Whistler rejects all such schemes
because they are open to misuse by people for whom the financial incentive may influence their behaviour adversely
and such schemes put money as more important than issues affecting people's health and safety.
Whistleblowers in our network say they find it insulting that anyone would think a financial incentive would encourage
people to speak up - there is "right" and "wrong", and if you see wrongdoing you must speak up.
A focus on money instead of on wrongdoing and on lives is shown by the fact that
UK whistleblowing legislation is not dealt with by the Ministry of Justice,
instead it is the responsibility of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
Many issues reported by whistlers are caused precisely by this attitude:
In construction, some employers find it cheaper to ignore or cut corners on safety issues, and blacklist union reps,
in care homes it is cheaper to run on minimum staffing.
Safeguarding of profits, not people, is often the motivation.
Edna's Law does not focus on money,
instead it puts the public interest and vulnerable people like Edna right at the heart of the law.
The current UK law is the
Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA).
PIDA does not stop the
reported wrongdoing and risks.
In fact it often leads to
concealment of them and the public never hears of the issues which may have affected them adversely.
Please read the book
There Is No ME In Whistle-Blower
to see how Edna ensures accountability
Also please click on the image below
Very few whistleblowers can afford to take their cases to employment tribunals where they and their home-made "bundles of truth"
(like the one below) will be
up against experienced barristers and legal and HR teams.
Even if a whistleblower does manage to get to
an employment tribunal, it will not investigate the reported concerns, and
has no power to take action on the issues.
Instead the whistleblower feels as if they are on trial because it is an "employment issue" and barristers will do their utmost to shred the whistleblower's reputation.
Employers can even make deliberately misleading sworn statements on oath and get away without penalty even when the Judge finds out, as we will prove
when we achieve an *acceptable* inquiry into past whistleblowing cases, for which we are now compiling the evidence.
Margy sums up what all genuine whistleblowers say, no matter what sector they're from, their
over-riding aim is always to stop the wrongdoing and risk - that's why it's easy to tell the difference between the real and the fake whistleblower.
Please click on blue button below to read comments on Edna's Law petition
We call for Edna's Law and a public inquiry into whistleblowing in all sectors, because the Public Interest Disclosure Act
and the Francis Review have
failed to protect the public, the victims or the whistleblowers in any sector.
We call for:
1. ONE law to protect ALL whistle-blowers in ALL sectors: Edna’s Law.
2. A public inquiry so that those responsible for wrongdoing, including victimisation of whistleblowers, or concealing wrongdoing are held to account and the wrongdoing of organisations and individuals can be exposed to avoid recurrence.
3. That all those whistle-blowers who have been failed by the system and by the Public Interest Disclosure Act be given full redress.
Without accountability nothing can truly change. This is the root of the problem.
It is impossible to build “a new culture” on an unjust and rotten foundation and to try to do so is to condone the past wrongdoing.
Edna’s Law will protect the protectors
and therefore protect the public.
Some whistleblowers did manage to get to a tribunal, and even won their PIDA cases but the wrongdoing and risks continued with no-one held to account.
Many culprits are in senior posts now, some with O.B.E or C.B.E after their names
Edna's Law principles
are based on the evidence from thousands of whistleblowers
since the introduction of PIDA,
compiled by Eileen Chubb in
Breaking The Silence Parts 1, 2, 3.
Part 4 is now being prepared.
We know what is needed because
we listened to those failed by PIDA.
Over 8000 have now contacted us. Please see quotes from some in
There Is No ME in Whistleblower
Please click on image below to read
about some of these people of integrity.