The Department for Enterprise has ruled out adding politicians to the list of 'prescribed persons' in whistleblowing cases due to concerns over confidentiality and potential politicisation.
That's despite a majority of respondents to a public consultation supporting Tynwald members being recognised as someone to whom a disclosure can be made.
Thirty-three percent were opposed.
In this edition of Newscast, Onchan MHK Julie Edge tells Manx Radio's Sian Cowper why she is bringing forward proposals to reverse the department's decision.
The department for enterprise went out for public consultation on the employment legislation and any changes for whistleblower. And certainly one of the questions within that consultation was whether two more members should be prescribed persons. Clearly the response back from the public was yes, they should be that was that was, you know, a high percentage. But within the report that was produced by the department for enterprise, they chose to say that they will not be following that recommendation. So I thought this is not open transparent democracy. If the public feel that members of Timor should be people that they can go to to expose or to report anything that's of a public's concern, I think it's really important, particularly on a small island. Now, there are whistleblowing policies in place already. What benefits would having political members, Timor members as prescribed persons, what benefits would that bring? So currently there's a whistleblower policy and obviously we're very, we're all very aware in the island of the serious nature. If we get whistled blowing and lack of following a whistle blowers concerns wrong, you know, it's cost us multi millions and continues, you know, there are still people reporting under the whistle blowing. So part and parcel of the previous policy politicians were involved. The policy has changed in the last couple of years and politicians were taken out of the actual internal policy. It was one of the first policies of government when in the last administration, I asked about it that Howard Quail actually put out for public consultation. I obviously have championed whistleblowers from the day I got elected and I have the whistle blown committee. So it appears to me following the recent tribunal that and some of the reporting from that tribunal by Casey Brenner that politicians were contacted, politicians could have taken some action at that point if they'd have known how to signpost people as to where they go with their concerns. I'm not saying politicians should get involved in employment tribunals, I'm saying if a politician hears something that's a major concern for the people of the Isle of Man and it's come from a whistle blower, politicians should know as a prescribed person how they can deal with that and who to contact and direct things to. Because ultimately a lot of the population have exhausted all of the revenues and I don't want this avenue to be one that can be ignored. So do you think essentially then this could make it easier for employees to come forward? I think from a transparency point of view I've obviously helped and supported a number of whistleblowers in my time in the last eight years and certainly I'm not seeing any improvement which was promised following the Dr. Anderson Tribunal and I think it's really important that the people of the Isle of Man, particularly employees as well are of Isle of Man government have the confidence that they can go to a member of Parliament because then we should all ultimately expect a member of Parliament to deal with that appropriately in accordance with current policy and guidelines. You mentioned a moment ago about members not getting involved with the Employment Tribunal itself. There is advice in the standards of conduct for Timmall members about not getting involved in employment matters. Do you think this could blur the lines there? I know that's I'll be honest I think it's a bit of a get out of jail card for politicians we don't get involved directly in employment. You don't have to get directly involved in employment issues but if you're seeing a pattern of concern within employment issues surely that then does become a matter that Parliament or committee should be dealing with and certainly that was my intention when I set up the whistleblower committee it was to establish what's really going on here because there was so many people coming forward and feeling that they didn't have a voice and they couldn't go anywhere so and obviously you don't get involved directly in employment tribunals. However some of the recommendations out of the KC Brunner report were and politicians were informed and could have done something and taken action earlier I believe that may not have resulted in what we did see and the costly expense to the Isle of Mantax pair. You mentioned some of the difficulties that whistleblowers have had going down the existing routes as they are at the moment. Would it perhaps not make sense to look at those routes instead and make them so that they work essentially? Well certainly and that comes down to how people interpret policy legislation and the good governance of the Isle of Mant and certainly from my experience and I was you know certainly as a public civil servant for 38 years prior to being elected I see many times that sometimes there is failure in process and this is where I do feel politicians should be holding all of our governance structures and systems to you know we should be able to hold them to accounts and if there's failures in process that then leads to possibly detriment to an individual and this is where whistleblower is so important because there should be no detriment to any individual that comes forward with a concern. You mentioned the whistleblowing committee that you chaired in the previous administration. Was the idea of ensuring politicians can be prescribed persons? Was that something you looked at then? Certainly we talked about that. My key aim with that committee was to get that complete independent reporting for the whistleblower so it was completely separate outside of government. The UK Parliament has politics MPs as prescribed persons or the jurisdictions do so that's what concerned me when we had a whistle blem, we had the Committee of Tim Hall actually doing a full report into the employment consultation about why politicians shouldn't be prescribed persons so I do think it's a really important topic to debate. We are you know politicians are prescribed persons in other jurisdictions and it's to get that transparency. What would I really prefer for the whistleblower completely independent process outside of governments, outside of any of our current remits and that hasn't come forward. The UK government are looking to an office of the whistleblower, they're looking at legislation going through. We have the opportunity on the island to do things right for our people, for anybody that wants to raise a public concern and I don't see why we should be afraid of that, not all whistleblowers are you know are precisely in some of their complaints, however we've got to listen to them because if they've had the concern to raise something it should always be listened to and the process should be followed through and not at detriment to not drawn out trying to damage the whistleblower in their current employment. I think that is one of the concerns for me and we did see that quite openly and it's been reported on hasn't it from the case with Dr Rosalind Ranson? As a member of Tim Hall do you think you have the necessary tools to be that prescribed person or do you think there would need to be some training provided to members? I think members do need training on lots of things and fortunate having been in senior roles throughout my career in government that yes I do know our policies, I do know our procedures, I do know good governance and you know that is down to the individual's personal CV when they're elected really isn't it and certainly I know when I was elected in Anken it was because a lot of people knew they'd worked with me, I've worked with an awful lot of government offices and they know that if there's if there's a policy if it's about good governance that I would always do that that's why I still support whistleblowers now because I have actually understood all of those policies when they've been implemented and it was always absolutely excellent training in governments on all procedures, policy and process. Am I seeing that today? No, am I seeing lots of errors today? Yes and certainly my expectation with a new CEO was that we would see massive changes here and certainly for the whistleblower and I haven't seen that today. When you moved the report from the Whistleblowing Committee in Tim Hall I think it'd be just over three years ago now you highlighted a lack of consistency particularly in the public service in the way it deals with Whistleblowing some differences of understanding of the policy there. Do you think adding more prescribed people would help with that or does that add more potential for those inconsistencies? I think it supports that purely because if it goes to the right person if it goes to what I have found actually and I do want to say this when a whistleblower has come to me they've exhausted all of our avenues and I do understand we have the Tim Hall Administration Commissioner that if all government policy has failed that you can go there however what we need to be doing with Whistleblowers and certainly when I have the committee the majority of senior officers and even from the AG's department what they wanted was solutions earlier down the line so in theory if we're doing everything right up until going to a prescribed person there shouldn't be many people needing to do that but I do feel it's a strong confirmation to individuals that they still have an a step outside of the current employee and the current part of government and that Tim Hall is there supporting everything being right for good governance and people on the Isle of Man. And just finally then you've mentioned Whistleblowers being in touch with yourself in recent years what would be your message to anyone who might be unsure about coming forward or has had difficulties coming forward what would be your message? My message would be if you feel you have a public concern that is affecting you either in your workplace or even even the public that you should always raise that with the appropriate authority or officer and follow the procedures and process it shouldn't fail anybody but sadly we've seen it does so that is the key message if policy, process and procedure is followed we should not be in the position where we have the most serious cases like we've seen however that's not happening and that does come down to that individual training of our workforce and ensuring that they have all of the skill sets to be able to manage people in the workplace and deal with anything that is raised as a concern there's lots of government policies there it might not necessarily be Whistleblower and immediately but if people have exhausted all avenues Whistleblower is an option that's available to them Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste may I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favorite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone thank you You
