To

Mr Tom Grimes Head of Enquiries, Complaints and Whistleblowing, Monitor, 23

December 2015

Dear Mr Grimes,

Acceptance by Monitor of Trusts proposed severance payments

Thank you for Monitors letter today about the data that Monitor holds, which is
attached.

I note that it is stated that Monitor will not provide information on payments made
on the grounds that the data is published. Moreover it is also stated that Monitors
data for financial year 2013-2014 is incomplete. This is a disappointing insight into
the central oversight of Trusts expenditure on severance payments, that the public
and the media have regularly questioned.

I should however point out that I did not ask Monitor for payments made, but rather
for proposed payments accepted by Monitor as suitable for submission to Treasury. I
make no assumption that proposals accepted by Monitor translate into payments. In
contrast, the data published by Trusts relates to actual payments, so I cannot agree
that the requested data is already published. This is why I made the request, which I
now repeat.

Monitor advised me on 18 December, that it does not routinely collate data on
whether there is a whistleblowing element to cases.

Unfortunately the lists do not show whether or not there was any whistleblowing
element to each request i.e. the 4th part of your request.

I am further advised in todays letter that whilst Monitor does hold detailed
whistleblowing information, it would be too expensive to mine it.

Therefore, Monitor's justification for refusing to publish details of whistleblowing
data (i.e. the termination of whistleblowers employment and related pay-offs) is
that it does not actually measure baseline performance of these critical indicators.
This shows poor oversight by Monitor of NHS whistleblowing practices. How can
Monitor possibly know if governance is improving?

As Monitor has a national remit for helping to ensure better whistleblowing
governance in the NHS, I find this attitude deeply disappointing. Indeed, the
Freedom to Speak Up review report noted that systems regulators have not been
sufficiently proactive in ensuring good whistleblowing governance.

Whistleblowers continue to be silenced and to be dismissed. There is an argument
that this is because of complaisance, or at the very least, lack of challenge by central
bodies. I see very little evidence that whistleblowers are supported and
encouraged as the Public Accounts Committee suggested.

I ask that Monitor undertakes and publishes the requested analysis for the sake of
full transparency and accountability on the use of public funds in whistleblowing
cases. Whilst I feel Monitor should require Trusts to disclose what they spend on
whistleblowing cases, if Monitor nevertheless maintains the argument that it cannot
itself provide such data on grounds of confidentiality, I ask that Monitor at least
provides data on the number of whistleblowing cases and the range, average and
total proposed expenditure by Trusts in the severance of whistleblowing cases.
There are no issues of identifiability and no possible argument of confidentiality with
such aggregate data.

I also suggest that Monitor should in future proactively track and collate data on
whistleblowing severance payments as a core part of regulating whistleblowing
governance. Please advise if Monitor will accede to my request.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Minh Alexander

cc Public Accounts Committee
Public Administration and Consitutional Affairs Committee
Health Committee
Sir Jeremy Heywood Cabinet Secretary
Rt Hon Sir Anthony Hooper
Sir Robert Francis QC
Secretary of State for Health
Shadow Secretary of State for Health