You’d be hard placed to find anyone who thought the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments was still fit for purpose, except maybe former prime minister Boris Johnson who routinely ignored it, taking up a series of appointments without reference to the body and ignoring their ever grumpier – but meaningless – letters of rebuke.
It’s current and ultimately last chair Eric Pickles has complained it lacked teeth. It was borne of a time when “good chaps” would apparently reel at the prospect of a public rebuke, so the threat was enough to enforce the rules (such as they were). Whether that was ever the case is now a moot point. Shame in itself is not an effective tool as we’ve seen time and time again from former prime ministers down. We don’t need to learn those lessons again. There will always be holders of public office who break the rules, are in it for themselves, or are incapable of upholding the Nolan principles. That challenge for those that do is to build an effective standards regime to deal with them.
So, it’s goodbye Acoba and the Committee on Standards in Public Life and hello Ethics and Integrity Commission. The business appointments enforcement will now be split between the independent adviser on ministerial standards for, well ministers, and the Civil Service Commission for officials. The CSPL will effectively be replaced by the EIC, which will take on the responsibility for looking into how standards systems can be strengthened, as well as providing a “one-stop-shop” for the public on standards.
It’s welcome that the government have announced that ministers who leave office because of a “serious breach” of the ministerial code will potentially lose their severance payment (three months ministerial salary), as will those who commit serious breaches of the business appointment rules. The rules themselves though remain untouched.
I’m pleased that the government have made good on their manifesto commitment and introduced the EIC, but it also an opportunity missed. Whoever is responsible for standards, it’s not the acronym that matters – it’s the powers that go with it and the independence to make politically difficult decisions. There is little legislative framework for the standards regime, so any new prime minister can effectively unpick it on a whim. Even the current regime still requires the prime minister to decide on breaches of the ministerial code, even if the independent adviser on ministerial standards doesn’t need the prime minister’s decision to investigate. As we’ve seen in the all too recent past, prime ministers will prioritise their own political interests over standards, even in the face of damning public evidence to the contrary.
Government could have taken a leaf out of parliament’s book. After a series of scandals on standards, from bullying and harassment to lobbying and conflicts of interest, it introduced the Independent Expert Panel (which the FDA helped design). This does exactly what it says on the tin and is independent. They’ve been bold and innovative in sanctions, including to former high profile MPs like John Bercow and Keith Vaz. The Committee on Standards have recommended sanctions against MPs resulting in suspensions, triggering recall petitions. Johnson himself resigned rather than face the ignominy of a record suspension. It’s not perfect, it’s still too complex a regime, but it has some teeth and has shown an appetite to get to grips with the problem.
At a recent Institute for Government event to mark the 30th anniversary of the CSPL, I asked Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister responsible for this issue, what the Labour government had done to stop a future prime minister from doing what Johnson did – ignoring the findings of his ethics adviser that Priti Patel had bullied civil servants and breached the ministerial code, riding out the storm when this became public, as well as the adviser resigning. Thomas-Symonds’ answer was essentially to do the right thing when in government and set an example. That’s Labour’s version of the “good chap” principle.
That didn’t work in the past and won’t work again if we face a government where the prime minister can’t be shamed. The announcement this week is at least a start and the EIC will inherent the CSPL’s role in making recommendations to beef up standards, so there may still be time for further reform. Ultimately though, it requires government will. No government can ever future proof a standards regime from a future one, but they can certainly make it more difficult and visible to unpick. Time still to fix the roof, but will they?
Dave Penman is the general secretary of the FDA, the union for senior civil servants