Commentary: Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath Water: Building the Case for a Standards Framework in Local Government in England

• Published date: 01 January 2014
• Date: 01 January 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12168
• Author: Gary Hickey

Commentary

Gary Hickey has more than a decade’s

experience working in the f‌i eld of ethics

and corruption. This work includes com-

missioning research and ensuring effective

knowledge transfer for Standards for

England, regulating ethical standards in

local government in England; undertaking

an integrity study of the United Kingdom

for Transparency International, and work-

ing as consultant for the Council of Europe

on a project to promote ethics in the public

sector in Turkey.

E-mail: hickeygary@yahoo.co.uk

84 Public Administration Review • January | February 2014

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 1, pp. 84–85. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12168.

Gary Hickey

Transparency International, United Kingdom

Given that Alan Lawton and Michael

Macaulay’s article is concerned with eth-

ics, I should begin by declaring an interest:

I worked, for several years, for the local government

ethical standards regulator, Standards for England

(formerly the Standards Board for England), and was

responsible for commissioning the research reported

on in their article “Localism in Practice: Investigating

Citizen Participation and Good Governance in Local

Government Standards of Conduct.”

It is easy to forget amongst the criticisms that the

standards framework created by the 2001 Local

Government Act (and subsequently revised by the

2007 Local Government and Public Involvement in

Health Act and then abolished by the Localism Act

2011) was too bureaucratic, overengineered, and

cumbersome that there were some success stories,

too.  is article is welcome in that it helps us begin

to build an alternative narrative about the post-2001

standards framework in local government in England.

It provides evidence of the diversity of functions that

standards committees performed and the role that

they played in ensuring ef‌f ective ethical governance,

accountability, and enhanced public participation in

local democracy.  e incoming coalition government

in 2010, in its haste to “abolish the Standards Board

framework,” overlooked much of the good work and

benef‌i ts of the ethical standards framework and, in

particular, standards committees. Indeed, the abolition

of the standards framework has raised concern among

organizations such as Transparency International and

the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Evidence

outlining some of the benef‌i ts of the framework, such

as that presented in this article, could and should be

used to build the case for a robust standards frame-

work for local government in England.

 e authors highlight the role that an integrity

framework can play in enhancing local democracy and

ensuring the accountability of politicians. Indeed, lest

we forget, the framework was established, in part, to

increase conf‌i dence in local democracy.  e rationale

was that, at a time when conf‌i dence in the integrity

of politicians (both national and local) had deterio-

rated and solutions were being sought to address low

voter turnout in elections and falling political party

membership, ensuring conf‌i dence in the integrity

of politicians would lead to greater participation in

local democracy.  e researchers found that ensuring

that independent members of the public were part of

standards committees played a role in enabling the

development of a more active citizenry. As the authors

note, standards committees gave citizens a genuine

participative role in local democracy and in holding

politicians to account.

Previous incidents of corrupt and unethical behavior

were also a driving force behind the development of

an ethical standards framework in local government

in England. It could be argued that, to some extent,

the post-2001 framework was a victim of its own

success; the absence of any major scandals during

the operation of the national framework enabled an

incoming Conservative minister for communities and

local government who was committed to slashing

regulation and cost at the time of an economic crisis

to dismantle what was perceived as a New Labour

construction. However, such a view is hard to sub-

stantiate unequivocally and ignores the various f‌l aws

within the framework highlighted by Standards for

England’s own review: the investigative track that was

hard to stop, the cumbersome framework, and the

trivial complaints, as well as the absence of any design

principles for the framework.

It may be, of course, that the greater discretion over

integrity arrangements af‌f orded by the Localism Act

2011 will lead to even more innovation in local integ-

rity arrangements. Further research would be much

welcomed.  e concern, though, is that the Localism

Act 2011 has relegated the importance of ethics and

is promoting too much of a voluntary and informal

approach to ethics issues. We should always look at

ways of ensuring a swift, proportionate, and ef‌f‌i cient

system for holding politicians to account for any

 rowing the Baby Out with the Bath Water: Building

the Case for a Standards Framework in Local Government

in England