OUR GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Rose is a Research Officer specialising in political corruption. Her work covers issues of money in politics, lobbying, the revolving door and open governance. She was a key researcher and writer of Transparency International UK's 'House of Cards' report which explored access and influence in UK housing policy and contributed to other reports, such as 'Track and Trace', which explored Covid procurement. She's previously held roles at Democracy Club and Spotlight on Corruption, and completed an MA in Corruption and Governance from the University of Sussex.
Last week, with all eyes across the pond, you might have missed a development on public integrity in the UK. The Prime Minister published his updated version of the Ministerial Code.
The Code outlines the standards of conduct expected of ministers, and procedures of government. It had been a slightly tumultuous start on standards for the new government with controversies over gifts, hospitality and public appointments threatening to derail their commitments to strengthening ethics and integrity. The updated Code, therefore, is a great opportunity for the Government to get its ducks in a row around the rules and principles expected of ministers.
While the Ministerial Code saw several positive changes, there’s still room for improvement. Below we outline three key changes and areas that require further attention.
Firstly, it was heartening to see how much emphasis the new Code placed on restoring trust as well as a new line that Ministers should embody public service. The Code also places the Seven Principles of Public Life (the Nolan principles), front and centre – something Transparency International has called for as a clear statement of intent for any new Ministerial Code.
These changes may seem like “just words” or unimportant changes but setting the tone from the beginning and shaping the right social norms for this government is vital. Often instilling the right behaviour in people is best done through multiple approaches with the setting of social norms complementing formal rules and regulations.
The second positive change is that the investigations process for breaches of the Code has been strengthened. The Independent Adviser, who acts as counsel and semi-watchdog of the Ministerial Code, has been given the ability to initiate investigations into breaches of the Code. A change that Transparency International UK, the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) and others have recommended.
Until now, investigations could only start with the consent of the Prime Minister, or prior to that, if the Adviser was explicitly asked to open an investigation. This led to an accountability gap in relation to ministerial behaviour. Our research found that in a five-year period there were at least forty potential breaches of the Ministerial Code that had not been investigated. If a Prime Minister didn’t want an ally, or indeed themselves, to be subject to scrutiny, then they didn’t have to be. This greatly undermined the independence of the Adviser and the effectiveness of the overall system and so these new powers for the Adviser are a welcome step.1
Looking ahead, when something goes wrong for a minister, as things inevitably at some point do, we look forward to seeing the process of investigation being as independent as possible, with no interference from the Prime Minister and a report of the findings of the investigation published. At the moment, although the Independent Adviser has a Gov.uk landing page, thanks to the Johnson administration, the investigations are not published in a uniform or clear way, with some being buried in the annual reports of the Adviser. This, along with tightening up of some ambiguous wording on timing should be addressed to ensure greater transparency of the investigations.
Lastly there were two changes to transparency of Ministerial interests. Lists of interests will now be published four times a year, with gifts and hospitality published monthly with the value of the hospitality included. This latter change will address a discrepancy where, counter intuitively, backbench MPs’ gifts and hospitality were published more often and with more detail than the quarterly ministerial ones, leading to some ‘regulation shopping’ by ministers. This will also tackle an issue of relevancy where Ministers’ gifts and hospitality were published so long after the fact, the details weren’t as urgent anymore.
As promised during the recent gifts furore, there is additional wording advising Ministers on how to handle gifts and hospitality. Questions still remain, however, if accepting tickets to concerts and events from a donor who has a distinctive interest in live and upcoming policy would be within the rules.
The form of publication has also changed, with a new ‘register’ of gifts and hospitality to be introduced. We expect this to centralise the scattered approach to publication whereby each individual department released their own data - meaning the information was spread over 20 different locations. We hope this register will be both accessible and downloadable - a shortcoming of the previous system. A timeline for when this might happen would be reassuring as to the Prime Minister’s understanding of the need for reform.
Disappointingly there was no change to the rules around transparency of ministerial meetings. Such meetings are an opportunity for private companies, charities and everyone in between to try and lobby ministers on policy. To understand who is influencing government, a vital part of promoting trust in decision making, it is essential that the public has sight of these interactions. Unfortunately, as we have highlighted their publication has long been unpredictable and delayed, albeit some updates last year hopefully attempting to change this. The previous Government did commit to moving them to a monthly publication cycle, so we hope that the new administration will think twice about their failure to deliver a more regular cycle of reporting.
This new Code sends a strong message to new Ministers on what behaviour is expected of them, a message we hope that they take note of. Lessons must be learned from the public reaction to the ‘giftgate’ scandal during the new Government’s first few months in office. Moreover, aside from the limitations we’ve outlined above, Labour committed in their manifesto to many other reforms to improve standards in politics. So, we hope that they don’t think ‘job done’ with this update to the rules. Rather this new Ministerial Code is just the start of their work delivering on politics as public service and responding to public appetite for improved integrity across Westminster. We look forward to them pushing to keep delivering an ambitious agenda in this area.
