From 1 October 2014 the current list of prescribed persons under the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 1999 is revoked and replaced with the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 2014. The new list is set out in the Schedule to the Order and includes MPs, specified Government ministers and public bodies, together with 60 regulators. The broad effect of the Order, taken with section 43F of the Employment Rights Act 1996, is that a worker will be protected by the Act if he or she makes a qualifying disclosure to a person prescribed in the Order, reasonably believing that the failure disclosed is in the public interest and falls within the matters in respect of which that person is prescribed and that the information disclosed, and any allegation contained in it, are substantially true. Employers who list ‘prescribed persons’ in their whistleblowing policy will need to update the content.

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