The Cambridge Students Union (SU) has introduced a new whistleblowing policy, designed to “provide an internal mechanism for reporting wrongdoing” within the organisation.

The new legislation strongly discourages reporting any wrongdoing to anyone external to the SU, and states that members of staff should “very rarely, if ever” find it appropriate to alert the media to a concern.

Issues covered in the policy as “whistleblowing concerns” include financial fraud or mismanagement, criminal activity, breach of internal policies and procedures, and conduct likely to damage the charity’s reputation.

This comes after Varsity reported on multiple allegations of bullying, racism, and financial mismanagement by the SU’s Senior Management Team (SMT) towards SU staff last term.

During this investigation, anonymous members of SU staff claimed that the institution’s Senior Management Team (SMT) fosters a “toxic environment of bullying, unfair treatment and discrimination”.

The SMT is made up of the SU CEO, Director of Membership Engagement and Deputy CEO, and Director of Enterprise & Services.

The policy states that concerned staff should go to the SU’s CEO with any concerns as their “whistleblowing officer,” but can go alternatively to the board’s deputy chair as a contact external to the organisation. It also discourages concerned staff from making anonymous reports.

There are provisions for protecting whistleblowers in the legislation, which state that members of staff “must not threaten or retaliate against whistleblowers in any way”. The policy goes on to state that if staff are involved in the intimidation of whistleblowers, they “may be subject to disciplinary action”.

These new rules were introduced on June 26, but staff were not alerted to its introduction until August, Varsity understands.

In the last academic year the SU saw four of its eight elected Sabbatical officers resign and its Postgraduate President Vareesh Pratap go on a 45 day hunger strike over SU failings.

In an open letter titled ‘Stop killing democracy’ Pratap called for the “direct intervention” of pro vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice to remedy the problems he found within the SU. Pratap also requested an investigation into declining student representation, potential targeting of minority representatives and financial transparency issues.

A spokesperson from the Cambridge SU told Varsity: “The whistleblowing policy has simply been updated in line with best practice for reviewing internal policies regularly. The policy is based on the template provided by NUS. The whistleblowing officer is the CEO, but the policy also lists the deputy chair of the Board as a contact external to the organisation.”