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.