Whistle blowing is known as ‘when an employee reports some wrongdoing to people that have the authority to take correct action, the wrongdoing is usually a disobedience of the rules and is a threat to the public interest through fraud, corruptions and so on’.(www.wikipedia.org). The Public Disclosure Act 1998 came into effect in 1998. Employees were hesitant to speak up about wrongdoing because they were afraid that they would not be listened to or that they would be putting their jobs at risk. The Act allows employees to talk about concerns to do with malpractice without having the fear of dismissal from work.
The article ‘a former civil servant was sacked by the home office last week (March 11th 2004)’ states the exposure of duplicity and incompetence in the handling of immigration procedure. The news was the immigrants were handed over the visas by cutting corners and violating immigration rules particularly from Eastern European countries. Even though this was a good act performed by the civil servant, it also had its consequence resulting him in losing his job.
There are a few steps whistle blowers should take into consideration when they are about to blow the whistle (How to blow the whistle/Online/Available from http://www.work911.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=4799/Accessed 26th October 2006). Firstly they should never continue with a complaint based just on suspicion or office gossip. The employee should talk to his or her family to gain support and tell them about their decision to blow the whistle. Secondly the whistle blower should always be on guard not to get caught by any member of staff of recording any findings or misconduct. When engaging in any whistle blowing initiatives they should carry them out in their own time not during work because there ...