IAN FOXLEY was forced out of a subsidiary of EADS, an aerospace firm, after he questioned payments made to offshore companies as part of a contract in Saudi Arabia. When an employment tribunal refused to hear his case, he remembers, "I felt I had no one to turn to." Only after he kicked up a stink and the media took notice did the Serious Fraud Office announce a criminal probe into the transfers, which is ongoing (EADS has appointed accountants to conduct a parallel investigation). Determined to make life a little easier for those who follow in his footsteps, Mr Foxley is helping to set up a support group. Whistleblowers UK will be launched in October. Among the 20 or so founding members are Peter Gardiner, who exposed a slush fund at BAE, another military contractor, and various whistleblowing former doctors, nurses and lawyers. Curiously, the first shot of funding has come from a foundation formed to support the underground press in the Netherlands during the second world war. Organised by Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism at London's City University, the whistleblowers will share their experiences in online videos and offer advice and a shoulder to cry on via a 24-hour helpline. The group will also provide lawyers and psychotherapists, working pro bono. Whistleblowers already get help from Public Concern at Work (PCAW), which offers information and advice on the Public Interest Disclosure Act and fields around 2,000 calls a year. But this does not provide psychological or financial support. It is seen by some as compromised, because it is partly funded by industry and emphasises reporting concerns internally to employers, the organisations that Mr MacFadyen suggests "are most likely to do you harm." "The more, the merrier," says Cathy James, PCAW's chief executive. Both outfits believe English law offers insufficient protections. HM Revenue & Customs can pay sacked whistleblowers compensation for loss of earnings, but the disclosure laws do not ban the blacklisting of those who go public. Eileen Chubb, who campaigns against abuse in care homes for the elderly, says it is too easy for employers to arm-twist whistleblowers into settlements and keep the most sordid details private. PCAW is campaigning against planned changes to the law that would place a greater burden on whistleblowers to show that their disclosures are in the public interest. These were designed to weed out frivolous cases involving complaints about unpaid City bonuses, but they might also discourage genuine whistleblowing, fears Ms James. Some within Whistleblowers UK want Britain to look more like America. There, whistleblowers not only enjoy support from a cottage industry of specialist lawyers, consultants and counsellors but also benefit from "qui tam" lawsuits and government schemes that allow individuals who help prosecutions to keep a slice of the penalties imposed. These rewards can be huge. Just ask Bradley Birkenfeld, who will receive $104m (minus tax and his lawyers" cut) from the Internal Revenue Service for exposing UBS's role in helping thousands of Americans to evade tax using offshore accounts. A blast across the Atlantic This idea remains controversial in Britain. The Labour government proposed something similar in 2007, but it was quietly shelved amid opposition from corporate bosses, who argued it would encourage gold-digging and undermine trust within companies. Yet the wind is blowing the whistleblowers" way. The protections and incentives on offer will be among the issues examined by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, set up in response to the Libor debacle, which is to report on proposals for legislative action by December. And the experience of America's SEC, which since last year has been offering whistleblowers 10-30% of fines collected, suggests companies" concerns are overdone. Its whistleblower office has been receiving a manageable eight tips per day on average, most of them high-quality, it says. As well as lobbying for friendlier laws, the new group should work with industry regulators to help them improve their procedures for dealing with whistleblowing cases, says Martin Woods. He knows whereof he speaks, having been given short shrift by the Financial Services Authority in 2008 when he reported finding holes in the anti-money-laundering controls of Wachovia, an American bank (for which it was later fined $160m by American authorities). The last thing whistleblowers need is regulators that encourage them to come forward, only to shove them back when they do.