Do the right thing

The government's hasty plans to scrap the the standards regime could prove to be a big mistake, writes David Swallow.

Compliance and Values should be at the heart of the Organisation. That is the message that you would hear from business Leaders but not from local or central government. Maybe the words are just window dressing for public consumption but at least you hear them said whereas there is a bit of a silence from Local Government on the subject.

That is not to say that government, particularly, does not have its problems. The expenses scandal may still have a way to run but it is yesterday’s problem (or at least it happened under the watch of yesterday’s government). The public sector has much more urgent issues on its plate in respect of which massive cuts and seeking new directions are paramount.

However, compliance and values are not issues which will fade away, notwithstanding Mr Pickles and his acolytes. The fact is that all over the world where power, money, sex and discrimination oil the wheels of the  institutions of life and the economic framework is king, there will be corruption and poor and corroding standards in Public Bodies displayed and it really is far less effective to address those issues when that form of cancer has taken hold.

It might be that the regimes that were held together by Standards for England and the Audit Commission were only seen as a way of imposing bureaucratic and expensive rules of behaviour on Public Bodies, but the  wholesale ditching of the system will be seen as a mistake. Reliance upon the voters, the police and the criminal courts to clear up messes are a wholly reactive and imprecise remedy and anyway reliant upon  information which will be difficult to come by, particularly when the cancer has taken a hold, and it is no way to ensure the imbedding of good standards in public life. The old system (and here I am going back to the time when there was in public authorities a strong culture of values and public sector ethos), when problems were quickly sorted in a patriarchal way, are long gone.

Culture and values are essential and they have to be publicly stated and privately respected. The problem has been that a statement of values converted into rules and regulation, undermined by poor execution and being process dominated, passes the system from the thinkers to the doers and then the whole edifice can become disconnected from its origins and purposes and bureaucracy and discredit follows. Easy pickings for Mr. Pickles.

However, there is big danger. The idea that it is enough to have a system of solving problems whereby the remedy is a visit from the police, perhaps in a dawn raid, with all the attendant publicity is not the best way for the Leader of a Council to wake up in the morning to smell the coffee and find out his Authority is ankle deep in muck. Of course, corruption is corrosive. It is a cancer, catch it early and it is infinitely easier to get rid of than catching it when it has spread itself. All our current and past experience testifies to this.

Accepting the new reality that the standards regime is disappearing, Authorities should take on responsibility for their behaviour themselves with energy and long-term commitment and set in place appropriate codes of  conduct and mechanisms for its support. The values of an organisation are every bit as important as health and safety. Failure to secure values in a public body will substantially impair its ability to perform; will cause it huge expense; will make its partnering arrangements suspect and unsustainable; will impair its reputation; and will ultimately take away its right to exist.

But let us get away from thinking about these things in narrow terms of rows between Councillors. There is a much wider experience to the debate on standards which should be acknowledged and it is this. The public sector and particularly Local Government is under serious challenge. Leave aside the utterly distorted presentation of purposes, the fact is that Local Government is being compelled (a compulsion that will grow the stronger) to fragment and the delivery of Services will come from a patchwork of providers. Some of them will be in the volunteer field but by far the greater proportion are big corporate providers and, maybe, the voluntary sector.

First the volunteers (not the biggest problem in terms of the size of the sector) but the vision is that the community will be inspired by idealistic altruism. This is highly unlikely. Everyone is driven by something and it is  usually self interest. Frankly if volunteer activists get their hands on policies and resources, there will be a myriad of standards issues and action necessary, probably disproportionate the financial sums involved.

Second, the big corporates. This is a much worse problem. The fact is that the business’s only purpose is to make money. It is the sole reason for its existence. It might contractually be delivering public services maybe in a cosily named strategic partnering role. It might be involved in carrying out public works or in making supplies and undeniably those activities will have a public benefit but that is a million miles away from being responsible for public services.

The pressures to make a profit; to make commercial alliances; to use information for more than a public purpose; to wheel and deal are ever present and can never be discarded however much the concern clothes itself, which is readily accepted, in values and behaviours.

The truth is that we do not live in a very moral world. No-one who has been employed in the public sector in the last ten years and more can be unaware of the change in atmosphere and the pressures to make money and cut corners with standards. Those big corporates may be efficient, lean and mean providers of service and they may have access to funds and be able to bring in investment but there is a price for everything and they are national companies with many fingers in many pies and not beholden at the end of the day to one client.

The local standards regime; the commissioning model; the management of the partner within the commissioning model; and the contract or other mechanism in place to house the relationship; and the transparency of behaviours, must be able to cope with this fragmented model of delivery of public services.

And it does not stop there. What of the in-house staff? The pressures on Local Government currently and the tendency to appoint persons to high positions, often honed in the go-getting world of business (the very  opposite of the Trevelyan model of the long serving cardigan wearing Local Government Officer of popular mythology), maybe, aided and abetted by hungry consultants, produces on the one hand a more vibrant culture but on the other hand, one more likely to cut corners in the dash for results.

The test is the quality of output and to get there it may be necessary to be ‘pragmatic’ for which read bend the rules. ‘L’etat, c’est moi’. There is little that depresses a Local Government solicitor more in a workplace situation than being handed a Cabinet bound report, on very short notice, for comment and approval, which is seriously flawed in terms of legality and proprieties from whatever cause. That solicitor has to face the tough side of pragmatism and needs the support of an organisation that really does practise standards from its innermost core.

There are so many examples of the absolute need for standards quite apart from the paramount one relating to reputation. Examples would include buying goods and services. If this function is not demonstrably fair, transparent and compliant – breach of trust; costs and shame will follow. The central point is morality. Doing what is right because it is right is what public Authorities should be about. Yes, risk of challenge is a
factor but it remains secondary.

Take the “regulatory” duties of authorities. Referees and arbiters have to be respected and be beyond reproach. If it is not so, all systems are broken and in disrespect – planning; licensing; and building control alike. Reputational damage will make all transactions hard, if not impossible, to carry through.

Partnering arrangements – whether public/private or public/public, the partners (particularly the public partners) must cling to standards and values like limpets for otherwise the Partnerships will break up in acrimony and disgrace.

If power is concentrated into the hands of elected Mayors, those offices must be practiced with transparency and with demonstrable and auditable attention to standards.

Of course, it is easy to criticise the present arrangements for being bureaucratic. Of course it is easy (albeit deceitful) to make the argument against standards on the basis of insignificant and tendentious matters,  consuming resources, and of playground comments and rows, however much those have happened.

The pendulum has swung away from Standards but that swing needs to be checked. Individuals learn values. Institutions need to create them and then secure them before they can practise them. There is a need to supervise the adherence to values and there is a need for organisations, at the highest levels, to respect the existence of values and the mechanisms for internal enforcement.

If you lose your values you lose yourself it is that simple. In any case if you do not behave properly, Wikileaks or Twitter will expose you.

David Swallow is a consultant

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This article first appeared in 'Leadership in an Age of Change & Austerity', published in May 2011 by the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (ACSeS).

To order or download a copy from the ACSeS website, please click here.