Alan Doig

The Effectiveness Of Codes Of Conduct

Studies of the prevalence and contents of codes of conduct in the private sector show that their use to define an ethical environment or culture, and their effective implementation, must be as part of a learning process that requires inculcation, reinforcement and measurement. Consequently, the public sector must realise it cannot look solely to formal codes to revive and sustain public sector values. Alan Doig is Professor of Public Services Management, and John Wilson is Principal Lecturer and Head of the Centre for Public Services Management, at Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University.

Researching Ethics for Public Service Organizations: The View From Europe

This article reviews and assesses the state of research on public sector ethics and corruption in Europe as published primarily in journal articles in the past five years. The themes examined include the public service ethos, the regulation of conduct, trust, individual behavior, the role of professionals, and corruption. The article concludes by calling for more comparative research, a better mix of theory and practice, and the development of a coherent body of knowledge for European scholars.

Inquiries into child abuse

Abstract In the light of the setting up of a Tribunal of Inquiry to investigate abuse of children in homes in North Wales, this article considers key issues about the general choice of types of inquiries and their use to look into the circumstances of cases of child abuse. The article presents data from a survey of published inquiry reports into child abuse from 1945 to the present day. In all, seventy reports are identified and sixty-one of these are examined in detail. Focus is placed on a range of issues relating to the use of inquiries, including the process by which inquiries are established, the way in which they are conducted and their outcomes and effects. In particular the article considers how the forms and concerns of inquiries have changed over time. The article concludes with a consideration about how concerns about abuse of children in state care or monitored by the state can be more effectively inquired into.

A case of arrested development? Delivering the UK National Fraud Strategy within competing policing policy priorities

The UK government has been developing strategy on fraud since 2006 looking at its cost to the nation, as well as its presence in many other areas of criminality, from identity theft to organized crime. This article focuses on the police dimension of the UKs fraud strategy, and its assimilation and implementation in the context of other policies and priorities. To avoid being arrested before it achieves anything, the fresh impetus sought by the last of the strategy reviews must take account of the ‘facts on the ground’, such as diminished police fraud investigation resources resulting from financial cutbacks and other, competing, priorities for these reduced resources.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT: A model for the future?

In the United Kingdom (UK), the Labour Government is seeking to achieve fundamental change in the way local authorities are led and managed. To this end, it has introduced political and managerial reforms, central to which is the concept of ‘best value’. This new agenda, to which local authorities must respond, builds upon the changes which resulted from the Conservative era 1979–1997. Although Labour has abolished the centrepiece of Conservative policy towards local government, i.e. compulsory competitive tendering (CCT), Labour shares the belief of successive Conservative governments that local authorities must radically improve the way services are delivered. This article considers the nature of the changed local government environment in the UK, including the role, policy and service provision debates which have occurred in local government. It provides a conceptual framework within which to consider the degree of change which has occurred in local authority management. A typology of responses to change and a model by which past and future change may be gauged are suggested.

Numbers, nuances and moving targets: converging the use of corruption indicators or descriptors in assessing state development:

This article is concerned with three issues: the convergence of donors over a shared development agenda, on why dealing with corruption is seen as a key aspect of the agenda, and the means to assess corruption within the context of monitoring development progress. The article reviews the genesis of the agenda, and why corruption is often used as an indicator or measure of progress. It distinguishes between two general approaches—quantitative indicators and qualitative descriptors—for assessing types and levels of corruption before considering methodological and interpretative issues relating to each approach. It suggests that, while each has a role, cognizance should be made of the awareness of the limitations of either for policy- or reform-related issues, particularly in terms of the exercise of political power or the nature and direction of development. The necessary convergence of the use of the two approaches has not been fully achieved to date and, until such time as a convergence is achieved, an over-reliance on one or other approach may not provide an effective basis for reform and aid initiatives, nor for assessing the progress and impact of both in delivering the development agenda.

Decades, Directions and the Fraud Review: Addressing the Future of Public Sector Fraud?

The article looks back at a 1993 research report on the investigation of fraud by the police and the public sector. The issues discussed there are reviewed in the light of research undertaken a decade later and within the context of the UK governments 2006 Fraud Review. The Fraud Review confirmed the direction of travel identified by the research but the article asks whether the Reviews proposals will—or can—effectively address the implications.

Numbers, words and KYC: Knowing Your Country and Knowing Your Corruption

Purpose – International business is under increasing legal pressure to ensure compliance with legal and other standards on corruption, and thus needs to undertake due diligence on corruption. This paper aims to emphasise that existing sources of information on corruption in specific countries are often limited for interpretative purposes.Design/methodology/approach – Using a number of country studies that look at the causes and legal and institutional responses, as well as other data sources from international agencies, the paper suggests that no one indicator can substantively alert business to the levels and types of corruption in a specific country.Findings – As a preliminary conclusion, the paper proposes that business must undertake more substantive work to understand corruption in a particular country. It also indicates that qualitative sources may be more productive than quantitative sources in providing information that is of use to business in undertaking such work.Originality/value – The paper h...

Marching in time: Alliance politics, synchrony and the case for war in Iraq, 2002-2003

This article considers how three countries—the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia—approached the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by examining how the leaders’ decision-making interacted, the commonalities of their policy-making processes, and the approach to policy justification taken in terms of their domestic political environments. In particular, it examines the extent to which their claims as to why invasion was necessary went in synchrony. Having decided on war, all three national leaders sought to persuade their publics of the moral imperative for invasion and the immediacy of the threat that needed to be eradicated, and each made secret intelligence public in so doing. The selective use of intelligence allowed the politial leaders to shift the focus of the blame from policy-makers to intelligence accuracy when the immediate threat from weapons of mass destruction turned out to be illusory.

Dealing with corruption: the next steps

The 1997 White Paper from the British Governments Department for International Development (DFID) was specific in identifying the role of governance now being addressed by international and national donors: “improving governance can ... improve the lives of poor people directly. It is also essential for creating the environment for faster economic growth. Both aspects can be compromised by corruption, which all governments must address. In developing countries it is the poor who bear proportionally the heaviest cost“ (DFID, 1997, p. 30). Dealing with corruption is thus a priority both in terms of who it most affects and in terms of which objectives of governance — including participatory and responsive government and economic growth — it constrains. Although it has long held a specialist academic interest, corruption has become the subject of growing practitioner attention which means that the focus on corruption is beginning to move significantly from theory to practice and the practical. While there is substance to the belief that fire-engines cannot be designed without a thorough understanding of the fire they are intended to put out, there is also a sense in which the pervasiveness and tenacity of the current fires of corruption are such that action rather than refining theories and processes is what is now required. To paraphrase an analogy made by a senior British civil servant about the general issue of identifying policy — that corruption “is rather like the elephant — you recognise it when you see it but cannot easily define it” (quoted in Hill, 1997, p. 6) — is also to suggest that, while theorising may help draw up longer-term approaches to dealing with corruption, there is enough information and experience to develop best practice proposals for more immediate implementation and for developmental strategies that link to the longer-term approaches. This article addresses some of the issues of this agenda which seeks to develop, for those actively involved in anti-corruption initiatives, frameworks within which to consider realisable and cost-effective shorter-term anti-corruption strategies.