As discussed in Chapter 2, one important way of assessing the significance of whistleblowing concerns the substantive outcomes of investigations triggered by whistleblower reports. The agency and case-handler and manager surveys documented the substantial role played by employee reporting in the internal investigations of agencies. Further, the employee survey indicated that two-thirds (63 per cent) of all those who reported wrongdoing, including more than half (56 per cent) of public interest whistleblowers, believed that their report was investigated.

The best information on general whistleblower judgments about the results of whistleblowing comes from the employee survey, which asked respondents: ‘Overall, if the activity was investigated as a result of your report, what was the result?’ Perceptions of the results of investigations were predictably mixed but, on balance, they were positive. Sixty-five per cent of all reporters whose issue was investigated, and 56 per cent of public interest whistleblowers, indicated that things became ‘better’ as a result of investigation of their reports. About one-third (31 per cent) of public interest whistleblowers responded that there was ‘no change’. One-tenth (10 per cent) said that ‘things’ became ‘worse’.

If we count ‘no change’ as a negative outcome—after all, whistleblowers who are concerned enough to report wrongdoing presumably want something positive done about it—the balance of good to bad outcomes of investigations is about three to two. On the other hand, if no change is counted on the positive side of the ledger—for a range of legitimate reasons, whistleblowers’ reports of apparent wrongdoing might not have resulted in change—the balance of good to bad outcomes is nine to one. Either way, the overall balance revealed in the employee survey is encouraging and consistent with the value placed on whistleblowing by many organisations, as shown in Chapter 2.

Does this positive result apply equally to all forms of wrongdoing, or do agencies find it easier to deal with certain types of cases? If organisations are good at dealing with less serious matters, but fail when they encounter more serious issues of organisational integrity, the figures just cited might not reveal much. Table 5.1 shows the percentages and mean figures for each major category of wrongdoing (including personnel and workplace grievances), ranked in descending proportions of perceived positive outcomes. These results show that while the bulk of investigations yield positive outcomes for most categories, the proportions vary significantly depending on the type of wrongdoing alleged. Employee reports of ‘waste and mismanagement of resources’, ‘improper behaviour’ and ‘misconduct for material gain’ appear more likely to result in good outcomes than those relating to ‘defective administration’ and ‘perversion of justice or accountability’.

This finding about the types of wrongdoing can be related to several others reported throughout this book. In the next section of this chapter, we show that achieving substantive outcomes is linked to whistleblower satisfaction—a result further reinforced in Chapter 6 examining risk factors for reprisals. Chapter 8 suggests that organisations are better at investigating certain types of disclosures than others. Taken together, these findings suggest that the better management of whistleblowing needs to include improvement in the handling of the specific types of wrongdoing that are currently more difficult to substantiate.

^a Mean values have been calculated on a five-point scale, in which 1 represents ‘much worse’ and 5 represents ‘much better’.

^b Statistically significant at the p = 0.01 level (F = 13.616; df = 8; p = 0.0005). Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the ‘reprisals’ group differed significantly to all other groups of wrongdoing. The ‘perverting justice’ and ‘personnel’ groups differed from the ‘misconduct’, ‘improper’ and ‘waste’ groups, with the ‘personnel’ group also different to the ‘defective administration’ group.

^c See Appendix 2 for wrongdoing examples categorised as lying in this and all other groups. ‘Personnel and workplace grievances’ included here for comparison, but not included in results for public interest reporting or whistleblowing shown in other analyses.

Source: Employee survey: Q20, Q33 (n = 1395).

The large number of respondents from a wide range of agencies in the employee survey means that these figures can be taken as a good picture of the outcome for whistleblowers whose reports are investigated. Nevertheless, the employee survey can give us only a broad snapshot of whistleblower perceptions of outcomes. The questionnaire item ‘what was the result?’ asked respondents to make a composite judgment about the outcome of investigations, a judgment that potentially combined the substantive findings of the investigation, any actions taken against wrongdoers, any changes to respondents’ workplaces or their wider organisations and any repercussions for themselves at work and more generally.

The smaller internal witness survey contained a range of questions designed to tease out some of these more specific substantive outcomes for more detailed analysis. Table 5.2 presents these whistleblowers’ perceptions of the substantive findings and resulting actions that followed one or more investigations of their reports. About one-sixth of the internal witness survey whistleblowers (17 per cent) were not sure of the outcomes of the initial investigation, in some cases because that investigation was still under way at the time the survey was conducted. One-fifth of the initial investigations (20 per cent) resulted in no wrongdoing being found. Wrongdoing was found in two-thirds of cases (63 per cent) but initial investigations that detected wrongdoing led to effective action in only one-fifth of all cases (19 per cent).

Source: Internal witness survey: Q32, Q40 (n = 139).

The action taken in response to investigations of wrongdoing will vary from case to case. Some action will be individual, directed at wrongdoers, victims or whistleblowers. Other action will involve deeper, systematic changes to organisational structures, policies and procedures. Table 5.3 sets out the proportions of whistleblowers identifying these different types of change as having occurred in response to their reports of public interest wrongdoing.

According to whistleblowers in the internal witness survey, the most common organisational result of their reporting was no change—a result recorded by about half the respondents. About one-tenth of the respondents were not sure what changes had resulted from their reports of wrongdoing. These figures are consistent with the outcome figures recorded in Table 5.2. In perhaps the most extreme cases of ineffective action taken in the face of whistleblower reports, fully one-fifth of the respondents in Table 5.3 claimed that wrongdoers were rewarded with promotion or other means when reports were made against them.^[2]

Where positive organisational change did result from whistleblowing, it occurred most commonly at an individual level. In one-fifth of cases, wrongdoers were subjected to sacking, discipline, punishment or other corrective action. Less commonly, particular decisions were changed, specific apologies made or compensation granted. In about one-tenth of cases, management or organisational changes were made in agencies. Sometimes, these management changes were more individual than systematic in nature, with individual managers sacked or reassigned.^[3] In another one-tenth of cases, policies and procedures were altered. Overall, 22 per cent of the internal witness survey whistleblowers perceived at least one positive change and no negative changes to have occurred in their organisation after they reported wrongdoing. Another 10 per cent described a mixture of positive and negative changes, while 68 per cent identified no changes or solely negative changes.^[4]

^a Responses total more than 100 per cent because respondents could circle more than one response.

Source: Internal witness survey: Q45 (n = 139).

Overall, in more than three-quarters of the cases in which whistleblowers were aware of an outcome, their belief that wrongdoing had occurred was vindicated by the investigation. This is again a broadly encouraging finding, given that this is a higher proportion than revealed in the more representative employee survey. In most cases, however, the vindication of internal witness whistleblowers was not matched by what they would have considered to be effective action. Given that most initial investigations are internal, as shown in Chapter 4, these figures indicate that in the opinion of whistleblowers, public sector organisations are much better at finding wrongdoing from within their ranks than they are at effectively dealing with it.

Not surprisingly, whistleblowers were more likely to pursue further investigation of a matter when the first attempt did not result in wrongdoing being found or effective action being taken. The bottom two rows of Table 5.2 show that only one-quarter of whistleblowers who believed that the initial investigation had been completely fruitless let the matter drop, as opposed to one-third of those who at least had the satisfaction of having wrongdoing acknowledged. Interestingly, one-half of the internal witness survey whistleblowers whose initial report resulted in wrongdoing being shown and effective action taken still pursued the matter further. The reasons for this doggedness are unclear at present. They could concern the complexity of some matters (investigations get good results but cover only some of the issues at hand) or perhaps the unwillingness, or inability, of some whistleblowers to let matters rest.

Those whistleblowers who do pursue a further investigation do not usually achieve a better outcome. The most likely outcome of further investigation was the same result as before (represented by the 23 per cent of respondents who fell in the four bolded cells on the downward diagonal from the top left of Table 5.2). It is true that 12 per cent of the whistleblowers represented in the table perceived an improvement in outcome (those falling in the six cells directly to the left of the bolded diagonal). At the same time, however, a comparable 9 per cent (those falling in the six cells directly above the bolded diagonal) were left with a worse outcome than they gained from the first investigation. The most positive interpretation of these figures is that pursuing further investigations marginally improves the odds of gaining the best possible outcome ‘somewhere along the line’, from about one in five (19 per cent) to one in four (27 per cent). It also shows, however, that most whistleblowers who pursue further investigations are probably left disappointed. This calls for further analysis of the circumstances in which whistleblowers themselves are more likely to be satisfied with the outcomes of their actions.