Protected disclosure (whistleblowing)

A qualifying report of wrongdoing made in the public interest. If you are dismissed because of it, the dismissal is automatically unfair — with no minimum service requirement and no cap on what you can recover.

Do I need to have worked for my employer for two years before I can claim?

No. Whistleblowing dismissal claims under section 103A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 carry no minimum qualifying period. You can bring a claim from day one of employment — or even before employment begins if you were a job applicant. This is one of the most important differences from ordinary unfair dismissal.

What if I turned out to be wrong about the wrongdoing I reported?

You are still protected provided you had a reasonable belief that the information tended to show wrongdoing and that the disclosure was in the public interest. You do not need to be correct. The Employment Appeal Tribunal confirmed in Babula v Waltham Forest College [2007] that the worker's belief need only be reasonable, not accurate. If the employer dismissed you because of the disclosure, the dismissal is automatically unfair regardless of whether the underlying concern proved well-founded.

Can I claim if I reported to a regulator rather than my employer?

Yes. Disclosures to prescribed persons — regulators such as the FCA, HMRC, CQC or the Health and Safety Executive — are protected under section 43F of the ERA 1996 provided the concern falls within that regulator's remit and you reasonably believe the information is substantially true. You do not need to have raised it internally first.

My employer says I was dismissed for poor performance, not my disclosure. What can I do?

The tribunal will look at the real reason for dismissal, not the label the employer puts on it. If the protected disclosure was the principal reason or a material reason for the decision to dismiss, section 103A applies. Gather any evidence that connects the decision to the disclosure — timing, emails, changes in how you were treated after you spoke up, or disciplinary processes that began shortly after the disclosure.

Is there a cap on what I can recover?

No. Compensation for whistleblowing dismissal is uncapped. Unlike ordinary unfair dismissal, where the compensatory award is capped at the lower of one year's pay or £123,543 (from 6 April 2026), a section 103A award can reflect your full financial loss, including future loss of earnings if you have difficulty finding comparable work. Injury to feelings is also available where detriment short of dismissal is claimed.

Does it matter that I made the disclosure partly for personal reasons?

Since June 2013, the good-faith requirement was removed from the definition of a qualifying disclosure. You no longer need to act entirely altruistically for the disclosure to qualify. However, if a tribunal finds you acted in bad faith, it may reduce your compensation by up to 25 per cent. Acting partly out of self-interest, provided the public interest element is genuine, will not disqualify your claim.

Whistleblowing law protects workers who speak up about wrongdoing at work. The formal name in the legislation is "protected disclosure", but the concept is simple: if you report certain types of serious wrongdoing, and your employer punishes you for it, the law is on your side.

For a disclosure to be protected, three things must be true. The information must be a

qualifying disclosure

— it must tend to show one of six types of wrongdoing. You must have had a

that the information was substantially true and that disclosing it was in the

. And you must have made it to an

appropriate recipient

— your employer, a prescribed regulator, or in extreme cases the wider public.

The six categories of qualifying wrongdoing under section 43B of the ERA 1996 are: a criminal offence; a breach of any legal obligation; a miscarriage of justice; a danger to the health or safety of any individual; environmental damage; and deliberate concealment of any of the above. The list is broad. It covers everything from a manager fiddling expenses (criminal offence or breach of legal obligation) to a care home cutting corners on medication (health and safety) to a factory secretly dumping waste (environmental damage).

case in 2017 clarified the public interest test. You do not need to be raising a concern that benefits the whole country. The Court of Appeal held that a disclosure made in the interests of a defined group of workers — other employees on the same pay arrangements, for example — can satisfy the public interest requirement. What must be absent is a concern that is entirely and only personal to you, with no wider dimension at all.

Disclosure channel 1

Internal — to your employer

Section 43C protects disclosures made to your employer or to another responsible person (such as a designated whistleblowing officer). This is the most common and most straightforward route. You do not need to prove the information is true before disclosing internally — a reasonable belief is enough.

Disclosure channel 2

Prescribed persons — regulators

Section 43F allows you to report directly to a prescribed person — a regulator whose remit covers the wrongdoing you are reporting. The list includes HMRC, the FCA, the CQC, the Health and Safety Executive and many others. The concern must fall within the regulator's area, and you must reasonably believe the information is substantially true.

Disclosure channel 3

Wider disclosure — media, MPs, public

Section 43G provides protection for disclosures to journalists, MPs or the public at large, but the threshold is much higher. You must reasonably believe that going directly to the employer or a regulator would result in evidence being concealed or destroyed, that you would suffer detriment, or that the concern would not be adequately addressed. Wider disclosure must also be proportionate to the seriousness of the wrongdoing.

The protection you receive

Once a disclosure is protected, you have two distinct rights. The first is protection against

. Under section 103A of the ERA 1996, if the protected disclosure is the reason or principal reason for your dismissal, the dismissal is automatically unfair. There is no qualifying period — you can claim from day one. Compensation is uncapped, meaning a tribunal can award the full value of your financial loss, which in serious cases can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The second right is protection against

short of dismissal. Section 47B covers any action by your employer that puts you at a disadvantage — being passed over for promotion, receiving a disciplinary warning that would not otherwise have been issued, being ostracised by management, or being given inferior work. Injury to feelings can be awarded for detriment claims, assessed on the Vento scale.

Both rights extend to agency workers and contractors in certain circumstances, not only employees, because the ERA 1996 uses the broader category of "worker" rather than "employee" for the whistleblowing provisions.

Priya is a compliance analyst at a financial services firm. She has worked there for eight months. During a routine review she discovers that her manager has been approving trades for a client who appears on a sanctions list, in breach of the firm's legal obligations and potentially the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. She raises the concern in writing to the Head of Compliance — her firm's designated whistleblowing officer — and attaches copies of the relevant records.

Three weeks later she is called into a meeting, told her role is being restructured and given notice. The restructure affects only her post. No other changes to the team are made.

Qualifying disclosure? (breach of legal obligation)

Public interest? (firm-wide regulatory breach)

Appropriate recipient? (designated WB officer)

Minimum qualifying period needed?

Dismissal automatically unfair?

Priya does not need two years of service. She can bring her claim within three months less one day of her dismissal date, after first notifying ACAS for Early Conciliation. At tribunal the burden shifts: once she shows the disclosure is protected and the dismissal followed it closely, her employer must prove the real reason was something else. A sole-post restructure, with no other changes, will be hard to defend.

Her compensation is uncapped. Loss of earnings to date, projected future loss (allowing for the time it will take to find comparable work), pension loss and the basic award are all in play.

Protected characteristics

Reasonable adjustments

Employment Rights Act 1996, Part IVA (ss.43A–43L)

Employment Rights Act 1996, s.103A

Employment Rights Act 1996, s.47B

Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998

Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed [2017] EWCA Civ 979

Babula v Waltham Forest College [2007] EWCA Civ 174

Whistleblowing for employees

Prescribed persons list

Protected disclosure (whistleblowing) — guide for workers

A protected disclosure is a qualifying report of wrongdoing made in the public interest under ERA 1996. Dismissal for making one is automatically unfair.

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