Standards require regular attention and upgrades

The creation of the Ethics and Integrity Commission (EIC) is a step forward in how the UK maintains high standards in public life. This new organisation, which takes over from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, will play a more visible and strategic role across the public sector.  Essentially, we want to help people in public roles – whether appointed or elected – act in ways that serve the public.

The standards regime sits at the intersection of public trust and public administration; when it is working, it helps ensure decisions are taken fairly, transparently and in the public interest. When it stumbles, confidence can quickly evaporate.

Standards matter – to the public, to good government, to our economy and our international reputation. And they aren’t something that can be set once and then left alone. The way government and public bodies work continues to change – new technology, new services, and changing expectations from the public all bring fresh challenges. The systems, processes and guidance that support ethical behaviour in public life need to keep pace and the EIC will endeavour to make sure that they do. 

The Seven Principles of Public Life remain at the heart of our work: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership.

These Principles are widely recognised across the public sector, but they still need reinforcing. That means helping people better understand what the Principles look like in everyday situations – whether it is communicating openly about decisions, managing relationships with external organisations or considering where the public interest lies in highly complex circumstances that demand compromise.

A key area of focus for the new Commission will be codes of conduct in relation to the government’s Hillsborough Law. We have been asked by the Prime Minister to look at ‘how public bodies can develop, distribute and enforce such codes so that they effect meaningful cultural change, ensuring public officials act with honesty, integrity and candour at all times’. 

This is a substantial piece of work. Codes need to feel practical and relevant to those who use them, and that requires careful development by the public body. Oversight needs to be proportionate and effective. We aim to build a centre of excellence for this work – a place where organisations can go to find and share good practice and benefit from a consistent approach to standards. As our own capability grows, we want to support codes and ethics discussions so that they become a normal and confident part of workplace culture, not just documents that sit in a file or on a wall somewhere.

I’m encouraged by the commitment many public servants already show. Most want to do their jobs well and in the right way. But I’m also realistic that pressures and uncertainty can sometimes make this difficult. When expectations aren’t clear or processes fall behind, issues can arise…and grow. We only need to look at the litany of public service failures like Windrush, Grenfell, Infected Blood and the Horizon IT scandals to see the awful damage done to families and to wider public trust in our institutions. Our predecessor, CSPL, looked at the themes arising from those inquiries to highlight and promulgate the Early Warning Signs common to these failures.

And this sort of work will continue under the new Commission. We will look across the standards system, highlight what is working well and identify areas where improvements may be needed. We will take an evidence-based and constructive approach, focused on what can make a difference rather than add unnecessary complexity. Our independence allows us to take a broad view and speak up where we think strengthening is needed. 

One of the tools we have as the Commission is an annual letter to the Prime Minister, a public report on the health of the standards landscape and where we believe attention is required. The Government has committed to responding to that annual letter within a reasonable timeframe. That commitment gives this tool real weight; it allows us to draw attention to systemic issues and the need for system upgrades.

The establishment of the Commission continues a piece of work that will always require attention. My belief is that we help keep standards strong by being practical, balanced and focused on what matters to the public.

I am optimistic about what we can achieve – and clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. We have solid Principles to guide us, and a responsibility to keep them alive so that they shape the way public institutions operate every day.  

The EIC was established on 13 October and has published an implementation plan which sets out an 18 – 24 month plan for the transition of the Committee on Standards in Public Life into the Ethics and Integrity Commission.