Views & Opinion
The lived experiences of whistleblowers in education Comment by ANDREW PEPPER-PARSONS, Head of Policy, Protect
Our schools should be safe places where children learn, play, and thrive in a safe environment. However, like all workplace instances of wrongdoing from safeguarding to fraud may occur. Staff are a school’s eyes and ears; they are often aware of problems before anyone else, and we all need them to be able to speak up to ensure children and schools are safe.
This is whistleblowing: the act of witnessing wrongdoing and then raising it with someone in authority. For this
to work, senior leaders in a school need to listen and act, but too often whistleblowers are both ignored and victimised for speaking out. Protect is the UK’s leading charity on whistleblowing. For 30 years - a milestone we celebrate this year - we have advised and supported thousands of whistleblowers each year through our confidential legal Advice Line. We have also supported hundreds of employers through training, consultancy and benchmarking to help them deliver effective whistleblowing arrangements.
Protect’s research findings on whistleblowing in schools Last year we launched a research project examining the lived experiences of staff raising whistleblowing concerns in education, examining 457 cases from our Advice Line from 01/09/2020-31/08/2022. Schools featured heavily making up 79% of the cases we examined, and the most common job role in the data was someone in a teaching role at 45% (either a teacher, teaching assistant, Deputy or Head Teacher). We tracked key themes and trends from the cases to paint a picture of the experiences of those seeking advice from Protect. We found that whistleblowers in the education sector were raising concerns about a wide variety of concerns, the largest single issue was safeguarding practices (e.g. no DBS checks, lack of training for staff etc.) (12%) and bullying issues (10%). The data reflects a general trend in whistleblowing where bullying and harassment issues, in light of the #Metoo and Black Lives Matters movements, are seen no longer as just employment issues but issues with a wider public interest. It is natural for whistleblowers to think their employer would be able to deal with problems in the workplace. Our research found 76% of whistleblowers have raised their concerns with their employer, by which we mean someone in authority from a line manager to head teacher, with senior managers the most common avenue to raise concerns. The message from our research is how poorly schools respond to whistleblowing concerns. The research is not a poll, nor a snapshot of what is happening in the majority of schools but more an examination of the problems that can exist.
We found that 40% of whistleblowers who raise spoke up said their concerns were ignored. This could mean two things: either that those who received the concerns have not acted on the concerns, or that they have acted but the outcomes have not been communicated to the whistleblower. Whistleblowers fear that nothing will be done when they speak up – and feedback is vital to reassure them that it was the right thing to do.
70% of the whistleblowers said they were victimised or bullied by managers or colleagues after raising their concerns. A very high number
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– 37% - said that, following whistleblowing, they were dismissed or felt they had to resign from their job. These are very similar figures to the NHS, where last year 78% of whistleblowers told Protect they had been victimised, and 34% felt they had to leave their job. This can be demonstrated by a case study from the research. Jodie (not their real name) worked as a Deputy Head Teacher and became concerned the school were misusing local authority funding and not following safeguarding proceedings. She raised the concerns internally following the whistleblowing policy, but found no action was taken and eventually raised her concerns with the local authority. However, by this stage Jodie had been subjected to a long-standing victimisation campaign by staff. At a staff meeting she was called ‘disloyal’ by colleagues whose behaviour she had identified to be part of the wrongdoing. This person then fabricated a counter allegation of bullying against Jodie in an attempt to ruin her reputation. Jodie at this point felt she had no choice but to resign and remove herself from the negative school atmosphere.
The law on whistleblowing and what needs to change Whistleblowers are protected from victimisation by a piece of employment law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1988 (PIDA). This gives workers the right to compensation through the employment tribunal if they are victimised or dismissed for blowing the whistle. In our sample, 6% of those that contacted Protect for advice were governors who are not protected by PIDA: they are not considered workers as they are volunteers with no contract of employment. In Protect’s view PIDA protections should be extended to school governors and others who volunteer in schools, though unpaid they can suffer from bullying or reputational damage after raising concerns.
The personal cost of victimisation or job loss is high. Going to tribunal or agreeing a settlement of an employment dispute will often be incredibly stressful for the whistleblower and time consuming and costly for an employer. Every time this happens, there may be a ripple effect on the school’s culture, making it clear that regardless of what is in a whistleblowing policy, in practice it is not safe to speak out. The law does not require employers to put arrangements in place to investigate and prevent victimisation – at present it focuses entirely on compensating the whistleblower- with the Government relying on guidance to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Protect thinks that all employers should introduce effective arrangements for receiving and responding to whistleblowing concerns. We suggest that all schools identify a whistleblowing champion among senior management, and train them – along with school governors and all managers to be good recipients of concerns. It is clear from our data that school staff will go first to their line managers so it is vital that they can recognise whistleblowing.
There should be a requirement on schools, to acknowledge receipt of concerns if not made anonymously and provide timely feedback. This would alleviate the impression that so many whistleblowers have that their concerns have been ignored.
Our research also looked at what happens when staff raise concerns externally. As Ofsted – the most likely place for school staff to go – is not prescribed for whistleblowing except for children’s social care, knowing where to take concerns is complex. We propose that changes are made to make it easier for school staff to raise concerns externally – including to Ofsted.
These simple changes would help make our schools safer, ensure that risk and wrongdoing is addressed promptly, and support staff who bravely speak up to stop harm.
July/August 2023
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