Five years of the Public Interest Disclosure Act in the UK: are whistleblowers adequately protected?

According to its long title, the purpose of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA 1998) which, came into force in July 1999, is “to protect individuals who make certain disclosures of information in the public interest”. It does so, primarily, by inserting a new Part IVA into the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996).(1) PIDA 1998 became the model for South Africa’s Protected Disclosures Act 2000 but, unlike legislation in Australia and New Zealand(2) it contains no provisions for monitoring or review of its provisions and effects. The purpose of this article is to assess the operation of PIDA 1998 in the light of the case law and empirical research (see Lewis, D, Ellis, C, & Kyprianou, A (2001) Lewis, D, Ellis,C, & Kyprianou, A. (2002); Lewis, D, Ruff, A, Ellis, C & Kyprianou, A. (2003); Lewis, D, Ellis, C & Kyprianou, A. (2003)) and to make recommendations for change.