As a Prescribed Person, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has a duty to report annually on the number of qualifying disclosures made to us and to provide a summary of the action taken in respect of these. This duty aims to increase transparency in the way that whistleblowing disclosures are dealt with and to reassure whistleblowers that their disclosures are taken seriously.
More specifically, under the Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2017 the OEP, as a Prescribed Person, must report the following information every year:
- The number of disclosures received (which met certain criteria)
- The number of those disclosures where no further action was taken
- A summary of the action taken in relation to the disclosures
- A summary of how workers' disclosures have impacted our ability to perform our functions and meet our objectives
- An explanation of the OEP’s functions and objectives
This is our second annual whistleblowing report and covers the reporting period of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.
The OEP was designated as a Prescribed Person in law in Northern Ireland in November 2022, and in England in December 2022. This is therefore our first annual whistleblowing report.