Recommendation 7

HM Government · verbatim extract Not Addressed

Seventh Special Report of Session 2019–21 3 against which we assess partners before funding them. We published last year a synthesis of the main findings from the central safeguarding enhanced due diligence assessments across 31 civil society organisations. Our due diligence guide makes it clear that the assessment of a potential partner’s enabling of whistleblowing should examine not only whether they have a policy, but also how it operates in practice. We will continue to reiterate this point to our programme teams. Relevant action is taken when the FCDO receives reports that suggest concerns about the whistleblowing practices of a partner. We continue to test private sector suppliers’ adherence to whistle-blowing obligations in the FCDO Supply Partner Code of Conduct. Periodic Central Assurance Assessments of multilateral organisations also look at whistle-blowing. We also continue to draw on other sources of relevant information such as the UN’s Joint Inspection Unit’s assessment of UN whistle-blowing in 2018. The Charity Commission for England and Wales, with whom the FCDO including the Safeguarding Unit and the Safeguarding Investigations Team (SIT) is in regular contact, made it clear in their evidence to the IDC that they have made it easier for whistle-blowers to come forward and report their serious concerns. This means the Commission is well placed to identify any shortcomings in charities’ practices through its casework involving whistleblowing. Current or former employees from any of our implementing partners can, and sometimes do, contact SIT direct about whistleblowing concerns. hundreds of partners which would be resource intensive, take years to complete and only provide a snapshot of performance. We believe that our current approach of assessing all partners’ whistleblowing capacity before we decide to fund them and our ongoing monitoring of their implementation of whistleblowing practices during the lifetime of that funding is a more efficient and effective way to check that whistle-blowers in organisations we fund are being supported and not retaliated against.