Sometimes certain behaviour can occur within organisations that constitute irregularities (breaches of legislation, breaches of codes of conduct or actions or omissions that cause damage, among other things) can remain hidden and do not become known internally.
Often, lack of confidence or fear of reprisals prevents employees of an organization or other people who know of these irregularities from making them known.
In this context, and as a benchmark in good governance and transparency in our country, the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, has published the Standard UNE-ISO 37002 Whistleblowing Management Systems. Guidelines.
This global standard gives guidelines for establishing, implementing and maintaining an effective whistleblowing management system based on the principles of trust, impartiality and protection in the following four steps: receiving, assessing, addressing and concluding.
It is a fundamental tool for organisations that, in order to generate a culture of compliance, wish to obtain information on these irregularities.
It may also be of particular interest to organizations that have implemented a compliance management system or that which, in the future, will need to comply with the transposition of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons reporting breaches of Union law at national level.
The guidelines of this document are generic and intended to be applicable to all organisations, regardless of type, size, nature of activity, and whether in the public, private or not-for profit sectors.
When establishing only guidelines (recommendations) and not requirements, UNE-ISO 37002 will not be a certifiable standard.
The UNE-ISO Standard adopts the ISO 37002 standard in Spanish, in which 12 Spanish-speaking countries have participated in the translation from English, seeking to ensure common terminology in whistleblowing management systems for Spanish-speaking countries.
