Information on FCA whistleblowing processes

Reference Case Number: FOI2025/01744

Freedom of Information: Right to know request:

The FCA recently stated: "We take our responsibilities to whistleblowers seriously. We have a dedicated team who are trained to receive whistleblowing concerns in confidence and take appropriate steps to protect the identities of those who whistle blow to us.The allegations referred to are historic, and since that time, we have strengthened and improved our approach to how cases are managed."

1. Please provide:

The reports and other key documents, redacted only where strictly necessary in accordance with the legislation, show the changes made that have "strengthened and improved" FCA's approach to how whistleblowing is managed, including the dates of any proposals and their implementation.

2. Please provide:

EITHER, FCA's detailed evaluation of the extent to which the changes have "strengthened and improved" FCA's approach to how whistleblowing is dealt with.

Or, if no such evaluation was undertaken, confirmation that the impact of any changes has never been evaluated.

FCA response:

Question 1

We hold information relevant to this part of your request, and the information we can share can be found in the attached Annex A. Some of the information has been withheld as we are of the view that its disclosure at this stage would be likely to prejudice the exercise by the FCA of its regulatory functions under FSMA. The information is therefore exempt from disclosure under Section 31 (Law enforcement) of FOIA.

This exemption applies here, as disclosure would be likely to harm our function of ‘ascertaining’ or monitoring compliance with our regulatory requirements over time (as opposed to during an ongoing investigation).

For a detailed explanation of why this exemption applies, please see Annex B below.

Further to this, we have also attached a copy of a LinkedIn article published by our Whistleblowing Team in October 2025 (see Annex C). The article, titled “Strengthening trust: How we’ve improved our whistleblowing process”, highlights the improvements we have made to our Whistleblowing processes and provides relevant data to support this claim.

Question 2

Our Prescribed Persons Reports from 2023/2024[1] and 2024/2025[2] provide a detailed, statistical evaluation of how our Whistleblowing procedures have both ‘strengthened’ and ‘improved’ over the last two years.

Of note in these reports:

We have substantially increased the number of reports which are acted upon within 12 months of receipt. In the reporting period 23/24, 224 disclosures were closed within 12 months of being received. In 24/25, this number rose to 521, an increase of 132%.
We took direct action on 547 reports within the reporting year 2023/2024 versus 908 times in the 2024/2025 reporting period, demonstrating a 66% increase in whistleblowing intelligence that enabled us to take direct action against firms.
Year-on-year, we continue to receive more whistleblowing reports with 70% of whistleblowers providing their identity, reflecting growing trust in our processes.

Further statistical breakdown of our Whistleblowing data can be found on our website: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/whistleblowing/data[3]

Supporting document

FOI2025/01744 Annex A[4]

FOI2025/01744 Annex B[5]

FOI2025/01744 Annex C[6]

Date of Release: 14/01/2026

Information on FCA whistleblowing processes - January 2026

Freedom of Information: Right to know request:

FCA response:

Question 1

Question 2

Supporting document

More information

Data