Confidential Reporting

Please speak to your manager or area manager, or to HR if you believe your manager or area manager are involved. We'll appoint someone to investigate your concerns. The earlier you tell use, the easier it is for us to take action. It would be useful when raising your concerns if you could tell us:

• the nature of your concern and why you believe it to be true

• any background and history of your concerns (giving dates if possible)

You're not expected to prove beyond doubt the truth of your suspicion, but you'll need to demonstrate to use that you've a genuine concern related to a suspected wrongdoing or malpractice within the business and there's reasonable grounds for your concern.

If you would like support at any of our meetings or interviews, you can have a colleague or trade union representative accompany you.

We'll keep you informed of any progress and outcomes of our investigation (unless we can't for legal reasons).

Please don't publish, share or promote your concerns to an external organisation or on social media as this could jeopardise our investigation.

Please use our grievance process.

No, you won't be victimised or penalised for raising a reasonable belief of concern, nor should you be instructed to cover up wrongdoing or not report genuine concerns (even if the person instructing you is in authority). If anyone tries to intimidate, bully, harass or victimise you for reporting something, please tell a senior manager or HR immediately.

Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 you have special protection if you make what is referred to as a "public interest disclosure" (sometimes referred to as whistleblowing), provided you have reasonable belief that one or more of the following is happening, did happen, or is likely to happen:

• a criminal offence

• a miscarriage of justice

• an act creating risk to health & safety

• an act causing damaged to the environment

• an act or fraud or corruption

• a breach of another legal obligation

• concealment of any of the above

• any other unethical conduct

You may also be able to refer your concern to a statutory agency such as HMRC or HSE.

If we believe you've made or supported malicious or frivolous allegations, or you've made an allegation for personal gain, we may consider this gross misconduct.