Whistleblowing disclosures report 2023
This report has been produced by the health and social care professional regulators
Whistleblowing disclosures report 2023
Published: 27 September 2023
We recommend viewing the PDF version of this document for the best reading experience. Alternatively, the report introduction and Social Work England section is available in plain text below.
About the report
On 1 April 2017, a new legal duty came into force which requires all prescribed bodies to publish an annual report on the whistleblowing disclosures made to them by workers.
“The aim of this duty is to increase transparency in the way that whistleblowing disclosures are dealt with and to raise confidence among whistleblowers that their disclosures are taken seriously. Producing reports highlighting the number of qualifying disclosures received and how they were taken forward will go some way to assure individuals who blow the whistle that action is taken in respect of their disclosures.”
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (2017)
As with previous years, we have compiled a joint whistleblowing disclosures report to highlight our coordinated effort in working together to address the serious issues raised to us.
Our aim in this report is to be transparent about how we handle disclosures, highlight the action taken about these issues, and to improve collaboration across the health and social care sector.
As each regulator has different statutory responsibilities and operating models, a list of actions has been devised that can accurately describe the handling of disclosures in each organisation (Table 1).
It is important to note that while every effort has been made to align the ‘action taken’ categories, each regulator will have slightly different definitions, activities and sources of disclosures.
To protect the confidentiality of whistleblowers and other parties involved, no information is included here that would enable a worker who has made a disclosure or the employer, place, or person about whom a disclosure has been made to be identified.
The reporting period includes activity between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Table 1: Types of action taken after receiving a whistleblowing disclosure
| Action Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Action Type Under review | Description This applies to disclosures that have been identified as a qualifying whistleblowing disclosure but no further assessment or action has taken place yet taken place yet. |
| Action Type Closed with no action taken | Description This applies to disclosures that have been identified as a qualifying whistleblowing disclosure but no regulatory assessment, action or onward referral was required. This could be in cases where it was decided the incident was resolved or no action was appropriate at the current time. |
| Action Type Onward referral to alternative body | Description This applies to disclosures that have been identified as a qualifying whistleblowing disclosure and forwarded to another external organisation without any further assessment or action by the receiving regulator. |
| Action Type Regulatory action taken | Description This applies to disclosures where the regulator has taken an action which falls under their operative or regulatory remit. This may include but is not limited to: referral to its Fitness to Practise team or any other fitness to practise process, opening an investigation, advice or guidance given to discloser, employer, education body or any other person or organisation, registration actions, other enforcement actions. In cases where the disclosure was assessed via a regulatory action but it was then found that there was not enough information to proceed, the disclosure is categorised as ‘no action – not enough information’. |
| Action Type No action – not enough information | Description This applies to disclosures that have been assessed by the regulator and a decision has been made that there is not enough information to progress any further. This may be in cases where the disclosure was made anonymously with insufficient information to allow further investigation, a discloser is unable to provide more information or the disclosure was withdrawn before it could be investigated. |
| Action Type Onward referral to alternative body and regulatory action taken | Description This applies to disclosures where a regulatory action was taken and the disclosure was referred on to another external organisation. |
Social Work England
Social Work England is the specialist statutory regulator of social workers in England. Our purpose is to protect the public and raise standards across social work in England, so that people receive the best possible support whenever they might need it in life.
Social Work England was established by the Children and Social Work Act 2017 and The Social Workers Regulations 2018 (as amended). Our overarching objective is to protect the public. We do this by (all of the following):
- Setting profession-specific standards for, and approving, courses of initial education and training to enable registration as a social worker.
- Setting professional standards for social workers, including those for proficiency, conduct and ethics.
- Maintaining a register of social workers in England.
- Running a proportionate and efficient fitness to practise process to deal with concerns raised about those on our register.
- Assessing continuing professional development, which promotes continuing fitness to practise.
- Approving post-qualifying courses.
Number of disclosures received
From 15 December 2021 [1] to 31 March 2023 Social Work England received two disclosures which we reasonably believe met the criteria of a ‘qualifying disclosure’.
[note 1: Social Work England was added to the list of prescribed persons on 15 December 2022]
Actions taken in response to disclosures
| Action type | Number of disclosures resulting in this action |
|---|---|
| Action type Under review | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 2 |
| Action type Closed with no action taken | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 0 |
| Action type Onward referral to alternative body | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 0 |
| Action type Regulatory action taken | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 0 |
| Action type No action - not enough information | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 0 |
| Action type Onward referral to alternative body and regulatory action taken | Number of disclosures resulting in this action 0 |
Summary of actions taken
We received 2 qualifying disclosures between the time we were added to the list of prescribed persons and the end of the reporting period. Both disclosures were made by social workers. Of the 2 disclosures we received, one came into our fitness to practise team and one to our registration and advice team via our general enquiries line.
No decisions on what action to take in respect of these 2 disclosures were made within the reporting period.
Learning from disclosures
Prior to becoming a prescribed person in December 2022 we created new eLearning content for all our employees to assist them in identifying potential qualifying disclosures, as well as specific guidance for decision makers. We also published our whistleblowing policy on our website.
The disclosures we have received in this period have not had an impact on our ability to perform our regulatory functions and objectives. Given our statutory framework, the action we would take in response to these disclosures is the same as the regulatory action we would normally take.