Ms G. Vivers v Powys County Council HELD BY: CVP — 2021

The tribunal found that Ms Vivers made a protected disclosure only on 18 December 2018, when she submitted a grievance to Powys County Council's acting chief executive on 22 December 2018. That grievance raised concerns about void clearances and alleged failures relating to health and safety, waste disposal, needle sticks, disposal and storage of items, sales of clearance items, data breaches, and concealment. The tribunal rejected the claimant's case that she had made protected disclosures on 31 October 2016, 1 August 2018 or 8 November 2018.

The tribunal accepted that Ms Vivers and Mr Holt had genuine long-standing concerns about void clearance practice, and that Mr Holt had been advising the department about health and safety issues from 2016. It found, however, that Mr Holt's advice and emails were not disclosures made by the claimant, and that the 1 August 2018 corridor conversation with Mr Pinney, through Mr Hutchison, was not a disclosure by or on behalf of Ms Vivers that Mr Pinney understood as such. The tribunal also found that the difficulties between Ms Vivers and Mr Hammond were present from early in her appointment and were part of a dysfunctional working relationship rather than being caused by whistleblowing.

The tribunal found that some of the treatment complained of was detrimental, including Mr Hammond's access to the claimant's personal file, his email limiting training, and Mr Rawbone's disclosure of the final written warning to colleagues. It nevertheless held that those acts were not done on the ground that Ms Vivers had made a protected disclosure. The tribunal also found that R referred the December 2018 grievance into internal audit and that this was an appropriate response to the disclosure.

Because the claimant's only protected disclosure was made in December 2018, the tribunal held that detriment complaints relating to events before 12 November 2018 were out of time in the absence of a series of similar acts. The claim was dismissed in full.