- Overhaul will simplify and strengthen standards system as government delivers on key manifesto promise
- Rule-breaking ministers who leave office following serious breach of Ministerial Code stopped from getting severance payments
- Advisory Committee for Business Appointments abolished as financial sanctions introduced
A new Ethics and Integrity Commission will be established to drive up standards in public life, delivering on a key manifesto commitment.
The body will have an ambitious remit to uphold the highest ethical standards across the public sector.
Rule-breaking ministers who leave office following a serious breach of the Ministerial Code will be stopped from getting pay-offs as part of the overhaul that will simplify and strengthen the standards system.
The Prime Minister has made clear public service is a privilege and is committed to showing how politics can be a force for good. Since taking office last July, the government has made the choice to break away from old approaches, learn the lessons from previous years, and restore trust in government by ensuring ministers are held to the highest standards.
The government will go further by establishing the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which will be created by strengthening and reforming the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said:
This overhaul will mean there are stronger rules, fewer quangos and clearer lines of accountability.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has played an important role in the past three decades. These changes give it a new mandate for the future.
But whatever the institutional landscape, the public will in the end judge politicians and government by how they do their jobs and how they fulfil the principles of public service.
Ministers will give the Ethics and Integrity Commission a stronger mandate and an expanded role to help put ethics and integrity at the heart of every public sector organisation.
Its wider remit will include a new obligation to report annually to the Prime Minister on the overall health of our standards system, and a new function of regular engagement with public sector bodies to assist them in the development of clear codes of conduct with effective oversight arrangements.
The government is also providing a new commitment to respond to all Ethics and Integrity Commission reports in a reasonable timeframe following criticism that previous recommendations were simply ignored.
The Ethics and Integrity Commission will be responsible for convening and coordinating ethics bodies, formalising cooperation and the sharing of best practice. It will be tasked with improving public understanding of the ethics system and will act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for members of the public looking for information on standards in public life.
Lieutenant General (Retired) Doug Chalmers CB DSO OBE, who is Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, will be Chair of the Ethics and Integrity Commission.
Ministerial Severance Payments
Under further plans announced today, the eligibility for ministerial severance payments will be restricted.
Currently, ministers are entitled to a severance payment equivalent to three months’ salary when they leave office for any reason and regardless of how long they’ve been in the job – even if it’s just a few days or weeks.
Under the new changes, ministers who leave office following a serious breach of the Ministerial Code or having served fewer than six months will forgo their severance payment. Ministers who return to office within three months of leaving will forgo their salary until the end of that three-month period.
The Business Appointment Rules
As part of the standards overhaul and the wider review of arms length bodies, the government will close the Advisory Committee for Business Appointments, which vets the jobs that ministers and senior officials take after leaving government to avoid conflicts of interest. Its functions will be split between the Civil Service Commission and the Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards.
This will be accompanied by reforms to strengthen the business appointments system – which ensures former ministers and officials do not improperly profit personally from their experience in government. There has previously been criticism about the lack of sanctions.
Under the new changes, former ministers found to have seriously breached the Business Appointment Rules after leaving office will be asked to repay any severance payment received.
The First Civil Service Commissioner has been asked to consider how the Business Appointment Rules could be strengthened further. The Civil Service Commission will also undertake regular audits of how individual government departments oversee the application of the rules for former civil servants.
