The Financial Services Council (FSC) has warned that its member companies may need to train thousands of managers and supervisors to handle whistle-blowing complaints under legislative changes being proposed by the Federal Government.
In a submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee review of the whistle-blower changes, the FSC has urged against a proposed expansion of the people eligible to receive whistle-blower complaints to include “managers and supervisors”.
“This significantly expands the number of people who are able to receive protected disclosures and has the potential to undermine trust and confidence in a delicate and sensitive process,” the FSC claimed. “Our members have told us that it is vital that all eligible recipients receive detailed training so they know how to respond to whistleblowing disclosures. Depending upon the size of the organisation, there may be a multitude of persons who would satisfy the concept of supervisor or manager.”
“Training thousands of managers and supervisors to identify and handle whistleblowing disclosures would be impractical and very expensive,” the FSC submission said. “It also might mean that managers and supervisors could report most workplace grievances as whistleblowing disclosures to ensure they are personally and criminally protected.”
The FSC suggested that, as an alternative, companies should be able to “authorise appropriate senior management as eligible recipients”.
“The legislation could address the variance in business structures by requiring that the body corporate appoint such number of appropriately qualified persons as eligible recipients as might be required in the circumstances, and then list a non-exhaustive number of factors to be taken into account such as size, number of employees, business structure and like matters,” the submission said.
