How ESFA handles whistleblowing disclosures
Information about how the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) handles whistleblowing disclosures about academies and post-16 providers.
Applies to England
Introduction
Whistleblowing is the disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the whistleblower, is made in the public interest. Whistleblowing disclosures tend to show that one or more of the following has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur:
- a criminal offence (this may include, for example, types of financial impropriety such as fraud)
- a breach of a legal obligation
- a miscarriage of justice
- danger to the health or safety of any individual
- damage to the environment
- deliberate covering up of wrongdoing in the above categories
Your employer is required to have appropriate whistleblowing procedures in place that ensure that concerns are handled properly and fairly.
Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA), you may be protected if you are a worker raising a concern in the public interest that falls into one of the categories listed above.
Anyone can complain or make a disclosure to ESFA about an education provider. However, PIDA protects workers who make a disclosure to a prescribed person or body where the worker reasonably believes that:
- the disclosure falls within the remit of the prescribed person or body
- the information and any allegations are substantially true
This means in certain circumstances, specifically where the disclosure is a public interest concern (as per the definition above), the same protections may apply as they would if whistleblowing directly to their employer. This means you would be protected from dismissal or detriment (unfair action taken by your employer, including punitive action) as a result of making a disclosure.
If you are unsure whether the Public Interest Disclosure Act will protect you, you can contact Protect.
How to make a disclosure to ESFA
To complain or make a disclosure about an academy trust or free school, please use:
ESFA enquiries
Contact form https://form.education...
For all enquiries for the Education and Skills Funding Agency
To complain or make a disclosure about a post-16 education or training provider, please email ESFA’s Customer Service Team or send a letter to:
Customer Service Team
Education and Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry CV1 2WT
In order for us to be able to investigate, we need to know exactly which school you are concerned about.
There are many schools across the country with the same name, for example St Mary’s.
Please make sure you provide us with the full name, address and postcode of the school in question. Without this information we cannot take your concerns forward.
Confidentiality
Unless we are under a legal obligation to do so, we will not share your personal details with any third party without first obtaining your consent. We also owe a duty of confidentiality to others and may not be able to share details of the investigation with you.
Anonymity
You can disclose information anonymously. You should bear in mind that this may make it harder for you to benefit from the protections of PIDA. This is because an anonymous disclosure may make it difficult to show that any detriment you may experience has occurred because you have made a disclosure. Making an anonymous disclosure may also make it harder for ESFA to conduct an investigation.
How ESFA handles whistleblowing disclosures
Once we receive the disclosure, we will send an acknowledgement and confirm that we will not contact you unless we need further information for any investigation we may carry out.
It is our policy not to enter into a dialogue with whistleblowers once we have started a formal investigation. This is to ensure we protect the whistleblower’s confidentiality and, where relevant, anonymity. It also ensures that we do nothing that could potentially undermine the legitimacy of the outcome of any investigation we may carry out.
We will gather information and, depending on the nature of the disclosure, we may refer the case to another organisation (for example, Ofsted or the police). Where allegations are well founded, we will look to hold individuals and organisations to account. Our follow up actions can include:
- publishing an investigation report in line with our investigation publishing policy
- referring to the police for consideration of criminal sanctions
- referring to regulatory bodies including the Charity Commission and Insolvency Service
- recovery of funds and contract termination
How long we’ll keep your information
We will only keep your information for as long as necessary after which point we will securely destroy it.
There are circumstances where we need to keep your information indefinitely for research and statistical purposes. We have measures to safeguard this information.
Updates to this page
Published 19 June 2019Last updated 18 September 2019 + show all updates
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Page updated to include subheading 'How long we'll keep your information'.
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First published.