From unsafe workplaces to financial wrongdoing, whistleblowers can play a crucial role in exposing problems, but often at personal risk. Jersey is now moving to introduce a new law to protect those who speak out from retaliation… but those who go to the media alone may still face issues.
If approved when it goes before the States Assembly later in the year, the ‘Protected Disclosure (Protection of Whistleblowers) (Jersey) Law’ put forward by Social Security Minister Lyndsay Feltham would bring Jersey closer to jurisdictions like the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man.
Express took a closer look…
What is whistleblowing?
Jersey doesn’t have any protection for whistleblowers currently. If someone wants to report wrongdoing at their workplace, they are left vulnerable to being punished or losing their job as a result.
The proposed law would ban retaliations and unfair treatment of whistleblowers.
The draft legislation sets out what kind of whistleblowing (officially called “making a protected disclosure”) is protected: criminal offences, people not following laws, harming the environment, acts that “cause a risk to the maintenance of law”, or trying to cover up wrongdoing.
These acts can be committed by employees, workers, or anyone “acting on the authority” of the organisation.
How do you blow the whistle?
Whistleblowers will have to follow a specific process: they have to make a detailed disclosure to one of a list of “receivers”:
- the individual or body they are reporting
- an elected States Member
- the Comptroller and Auditor General
- the Financial Services Ombudsman
- the JFSC
- the Children’s Commissioner
- the Information Commissioner
- the Commissioner for Standards
- the Charity Commissioner
The receiver then has to make a written note of the disclosure, and take “reasonable steps” to investigate the claim.
Who is protected?
Whistleblowers can be employees reporting their employer, police officers reporting the States police, and workers providing a service (for example cleaners cleaning an office) can make protected disclosures.
The law also protects those who have said they intend to make a protected disclosure or have encouraged others to do so.
Under the law, it would be illegal to treat a whistleblower less favourably or retaliate against them, including subjecting them to dismissal or redundancy.
Limits to the law
The proposal has already drawn some criticism from local lawyers.
Daniel Read and Jo Powis, from Jersey firm Walkers, explained that the law would only protect whistleblowers who go to the media in certain, narrow circumstances – as has been seen in several high-profile local cases in recent years.
In November 2024, Express revealed that ambulance workers had been threatened with disciplinary action after some blew the whistle about what they described as “systemic issues” within the service which they felt had left them at serious risk of harm.
Under the law, those who go to the media would only be protected if a “substantially similar disclosure” has already been made.
They added that any disclosure that “purports to be a protected disclosure” will be treated as one, meaning it will be up to the employer to prove that a disclosure isn’t protected.
The requirements on receivers came “unexpectedly”, they added, and went further than recommendations made by the Employment Forum. But, they said, there is no requirement for employers to have a whistleblowing policy.
The Jersey proposition also goes further than the UK law by protecting those who have “expressed an intention” or encouraged others to blow the whistle, or given information to support a disclosure.
Deputy Feltham’s report was clear that whistleblowing can describe many different situations, and that the law wouldn’t cover them all – instead focusing on certain reports of wrongdoing, made to regulatory bodies.
And the minister said in her report that there was no penalty for organisations that receive a report from a whistleblower, but don’t investigate it.
What happens next?
Given the limited time left before the current States Assembly term finishes its term and the need for the law to be scrutinised, the Protected Disclosure (Protection of Whistleblowers) (Jersey) Law won’t be debated before the election in June.
Once a new government in place, it will be Deputy Feltham’s successor who will have the task of seeing the law enacted.
Anyone who wants to share their thoughts on the proposals has been asked to email whistleblowing@gov.je.