Islington Council's Audit and Risk Committee has noted a biennial report indicating a decrease in the number of whistleblowing referrals, despite an increase in their complexity. The report, covering the period from August 2025 to January 2026, revealed four new referrals met the criteria for whistleblowing, with three remaining open and one closed. This follows an update on eight previously open referrals, of which three are still active.

The reduction in referral numbers is attributed to a strategic decision made a year or so ago that whistleblowing complaints would try to be filtered out to other ways of dealing with it, like more HR consideration. The council has also been very robust in how we deal with those, both in terms of whether they are best dealt as whistleblowing in the first place or perhaps better dealt with under different procedures, such as the grievance procedure or a complaint procedure. Despite the decrease in volume, the complexity of some referrals has increased, consuming capacity within the Internal Audit Investigations (IAI) team and causing some investigations to exceed the typical 6-month timescale for completion. The criteria for a referral to be considered whistleblowing are assessed in line with the Council's whistleblowing procedure, and only those meeting the defined criteria are logged and investigated as such.

During the meeting on Thursday, 19 March 2026, councillors discussed the handling of allegations, particularly those with potential criminal elements where evidence was insufficient for internal action. Councillor Satnam Gill OBE raised concerns about the threshold for pursuing allegations, suggesting that cases with indications of criminal offences should be left to the police. Paul Clarke, Acting Corporate Director of Resources, explained that disciplinary thresholds are lower than criminality thresholds, and cases are assessed based on the balance of probabilities for HR matters, while police require a higher standard of proof. This means that while HR matters are assessed on the balance of probabilities, police investigations require a higher standard of proof.

Councillor Janet Burgess MBE expressed concern about a specific case involving alleged soliciting of prostitution and requested it be revisited. Chris Martin, Assistant Director of Audit & Risk, confirmed that the complainant had come forward and inquiries were made, with initial fact-finding by HR and safeguarding measures put in place. However, due to a lack of information and insufficient evidence, the case could not be pursued further internally or referred to the police at that time. It was noted that the case was passed to the council's HR team to consider behavioural issues.

The council's approach to allegations with potential criminal elements but insufficient evidence for internal action or police referral involves assessing them based on these differing thresholds. If a case does not meet the threshold for an HR investigation, it is not automatically dropped, and HR processes would still be followed. The meeting also highlighted a concern that criminality is falling between several different pathways if it doesn't meet the threshold for HR action and the council is second-guessing whether the police would consider there's evidence worth investigating, leading to a risk of letting things slide because they don't meet an employment-related standard when there may indeed be criminal offences committed.

The report, titled LB Islington 2025-26 Whistleblowing Monitoring Report CMT 250226 despatch LB Islington 2025-26 Whistleblowing Monitoring Report, was presented to the Audit and Risk Committee as part of their ongoing oversight of council procedures. Further details on the committee's work plan can be found in the Draft Audit Committee Work Plan 2025-26.