The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is developing new digital channels for its recently launched Make a Whistleblower Report hotline and its public gateway.
This follows the launch of the hotline in June for employees or ex-employees of organisations to raise concerns about possible anti-competitive or unfair trading practices.
The CMA has published a procurement notice for support in the two projects, aiming to deliver new web forms for the hotline in December of this year and the gateway in April 2022.
The whistleblower service – which goes to the specialist intelligence unit – currently works through phone and email. The webform will be available along with these, alerting people making complaints to the protections they are entitled to under employment law and providing a steer on whether the CMA can take a case forward.
It will also provide an option to provide information anonymously.
Single reporting service
The public gateway is intended to provide a single digital reporting service for all issues, to be used by the public, business representatives and its frontline staff. Its webform will replace the general enquiries email address as the primary method for consumers to report competition or market problems.
It will be aimed at improving the efficiency of the CMA’s contact handling procedures. It will also include signposting to alert consumers when another regulator or organisation may be able to assist them.
CMA said it has so far carried out preliminary research and identified some unmet user needs, but needs to do more research on both projects.
The move follows its implementation of a new CRM system on Microsoft Dynamics 365 in February.
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