Tag Archives: Nolan principles

Parliamentary standards: priorities for the new Commissioner 

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In this blog post, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg CB, discusses the key themes of his first months in post, providing a snapshot of the top issues he and his team are working on. The Commissioner’s Annual Report 2022-23 was published on 12 July.

Engagement and outreach are priorities for my five-year term, as I hope to explore and address the causes of low public engagement with the political system and parliament.

In my first annual report, which was published this week, I describe the work my team and I are undertaking to support this work, including a series of Principles in Practice seminars, in and outside Westminster, that explore how the Seven Principles of Public Life (that underpin the Code of Conduct for MPs, and which are also known as the Nolan Principles) already inspire the day-to-day workings of MPs’ offices. Appendix 5 of the report includes anonymised case studies drawn from MPs’ offices, to share and inspire examples of principles-driven best practice.

My report also contains my reflections, informed by my engagement with the hundreds of emails, letters and calls my office receives from members of the public each month, on two of the most prevalent topics of complaint that I receive: MPs’ responsiveness to constituency correspondence; and the language and tone of some MPs’ expression of views and opinions.

MPs’ responsiveness to constituency correspondence

I am concerned about the very large number of complaints that I receive about lack of responsiveness to constituency correspondence, which suggest that there is a general perception on the part of some members of the public that some MPs are not attaching sufficient importance to responding to enquiries and other correspondence from constituents.

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Standards in public life: what are they, and why do they matter?

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This is the first edition of this briefing. It has since been updated. Read the most up-to-date version and other briefings on the Constitution Unit’s website.

Standards in public life are essential to the health of the democratic system. They protect decision-making, underpin political stability, and help to maintain public trust. Lisa James, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick argue that if they are not respected, pressures will grow for a more legalised constitution.

Background

High ethical standards are fundamental to a healthy democracy, and their importance is widely recognised across the political spectrum. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to put ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability’ at the heart of his government; Keir Starmer has pledged to maintain ‘decency and standards in public life’.

No single set of rules or values can hope to capture every aspect of behaviour, so standards in public life are maintained through a combination of codified values, laws, rules and conventions.

The most fundamental values governing all those in public life are contained in the Nolan Principles – also known as the Seven Principles of Public Life (set out below) – which are defined and promoted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL). Some standards – such as those relating to electoral malpractice or bribery – are matters of law. Others are contained in various codes of practice, such as the Ministerial Code or the Code of Conduct for MPs. And others are reflected in the UK’s wider system of constitutional conventions, which help to govern the relationships between institutions.

There is little serious disagreement about the importance of standards in public life for a democratic system. But debates and disagreements exist about how they should be defined and enforced.

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Arguments over the Ministerial Code and the role of the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests are far from over

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Recently announced changes to the Ministerial Code demonstrate that the government is unlikely to place it on a statutory basis any time soon. Sir Peter Riddell argues that although some of the revisions are sensible, the new Code demonstrates the government’s determination to assert the privileges of the executive and reflects an increasingly presidential view of the Prime Minister’s role.

The Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is neither fully independent nor entirely an adviser. His hybrid, anomalous position reflects wider tensions between ministers and advisers on standards which have been exacerbated under the current administration – and are unlikely to change after Boris Johnson won a confidence vote on Monday to ensure his survival as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. These tensions have reflected an increasing assertion by the Prime Minister of a presidential view of his role based on the mandate of the ballot box, as distinct from accountability to parliament. The limited changes in the latest version of the Ministerial Code only go a small way to address these concerns.

The public arguments over the Ministerial Code and the Independent Adviser have only partly been caused by the casual attitude of the current Prime Minister towards standards in public life, as highlighted by the repeated frustrations expressed by Lord (Christopher) Geidt, the current Adviser. That has led to widely supported calls from the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) for a strengthening of his powers.

As with so much in standards in public life, the evolution of the Ministerial Code (originally the more prosaic Questions of Procedure for Ministers) and the creation of the Adviser’s role in 2006 have been the result of a series of allegations and scandals. These exposed the limitations of previous informal understandings and conventions and underlined the need for more formal codes of conduct and independent investigation. The Ministerial Code combines operational guidance about how business in government should be conducted and a list of expectations about ministers’ ethical behaviour in office, based on the seven principles of public life (also known as the Nolan principles).

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Ministerial standards in Westminster and beyond

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Ministerial standards and the mechanisms for enforcing them have been in the news more than usual over the course of the last twelve months, making clear the limitations of the current rules and systems of regulating ministerial behaviour. In May, the Unit hosted an expert panel to discuss how the standards regimes work in the UK, and what reforms might be desirable. Dave Busfield-Birch summarises the contributions.

On 24 May, the Constitution Unit hosted an online webinar entitled Ministerial Standards in Westminster and Beyond. Unit founder Robert Hazell chaired the event, which had three distinguished panellists: Alex Allan, former independent adviser to the Prime Minister on ministerial interests; Susan Deacon, a former minister in Scotland who also sat on the Scottish Parliament’s Standards and Procedures committees; and Richard Thomas, a member of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), which advises ministers and senior officials on potential conflicts of interest when they take up appointments after leaving Whitehall.

This post summarises the main contributions of the speakers: the full event, including the lively and informative Q&A, is available on our YouTube page.

Alex Allan

Alex Allan started his contribution by offering a little bit of history about the ‘rather strange document’ that is the Ministerial Code. Something similar to the Code has been in place since the Attlee government, but perhaps the most significant changes came in 1995 when the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) produced its first report, and outlined ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’, which are commonly referred to as the ‘Nolan principles’.

Another significant change came in 2007, when the Brown government published a paper on the governance of Britain, which resulted in the creation of the role of independent adviser on ministerial interests, a title held by Allan from 2011 until his resignation in 2020. Where there is an allegation about the conduct of a minister that the Cabinet Secretary feels warrants further investigation, the matter will be referred to the independent adviser. However, most of the work of the independent adviser is of little media interest, and involves dealing with declarations of ministers’ interests, which are examined by their permanent secretary and the propriety and ethics team at the Cabinet Office, before being examined by the independent adviser.

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The public appointments system is under strain: it needs more clarity and transparency

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In September, Peter Riddell will step down as Commissioner for Public Appointments after over five years in the role. In this post, which summarises comments made at a recent Unit seminar, he explains how the public appointments system is under strain, and how it might be improved. In particular, he calls for more clarity and transparency in both regulated and unregulated public appointments.

The public appointments system rests on two, at times, apparently contradictory principles — ministerial responsibility and selection by merit. These were set out both in the original Nolan report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1995 and in the government’s Governance Code in late 2016. Their existence side by side — along with selflessness, integrity, openness, diversity, assurance and fairness — can cause confusion. Ministers and their advisers understandably want to appoint those who share their values and views, while critics allege cronyism and an undermining of the merit principle.

In reality, as with so much in public life, the answer lies in a balance between the principles, as envisaged in the 1995 report: ‘responsibility for appointments should remain with ministers advised by committees which include independent members’. The system is inherently political, and always has been, but patronage is constrained. The process of competition acts as a filter to identify candidates assessed as appointable in relation to the published job and person specifications. It is then up to ministers to pick one of these candidates.

The integrity of the system is now under strain. The appointment of political allies has happened before and is consistent with the Governance Code. What is different now is the breadth of the campaign led from the top of the government. This raises questions about the overall pluralism of arms-length bodies. That is a matter for ministers to explain and defend.

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