I work in a social care sector. My role is to support senior people on a one to one basis when they are completing their role. The role I support is to do with risk to vulnerable people and I have been employed in this role for a long time. I am required to work with different senior people all of the time and have a wealth of knowledge and experience.
Because of the nature of the job there is quite a high turn over of staff at senior level and we frequently have locums. My role is quite isolated but I have a line manager and team of colleagues whom I regularly check in with.
During a recent meeting it became apparent that there have been issues with several senior people. Our line manager suggested that we got together to collate our issues which would then be escalated to senior management.
As a group, we collated our concerns and forwarded them. Our manager then requested names. As a group we declined and explained that the issues raised could be reviewed by senior management and addressed through adequate supervision and auditing of performance and basically wanted management to step up and undertake their role more effectively.
Our manager has responded with a statement in relation to the whistleblowing policy and said that we could be liable to disciplinary action for withholding information.
Am I right to feel astounded at this approach? None of the issues raised would constitute whistleblowing. At no point did we state that we would withhold information if we were extremely concerned. Whistleblowing concerns were raised in the past and were ignored.
I’m not sure how to respond or whether to contact my union rep. I don’t want this to become a bigger issue. It feels like the situation has been blow out of proportion by management.