Employment Tribunals and PIDA

In response to its consultation, the government has published its response confirming that employment tribunals will have the power to send copies of an employment tribunal claim form (ET1 claim form), or extracts from it, that relates to whistleblowing claims, directly to the relevant regulator. The regulator will then assess the information and investigate if appropriate as part of their normal regulatory duties, procedures and processes.

The claim form is set to be amended to give claimants the option to tick a box to give their consent for this information to be passed on to the regulator and the employment tribunal will then send it on to the appropriate regulator. This task is to be carried out by administrative staff at the tribunal, not employment judges. Both parties will be contacted by the tribunals in writing informing them that the relevant authority has been contacted and the ET1 sent.

New regulations implementing these powers will be laid before Parliament shortly but it is believed that the new powers will apply to cases brought on or after 6 April 2010.

Action Steps

This is a good opportunity for employers to make sure that they have put in place a whistleblowing policy which ought to reduce the likelihood of litigation arising out of an employee making a protected disclosure and improve prospects of defending a claim where the employee has not complied with the policy.