The Isle of Wight Council
Ethical Audit
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A report prepared by the Standards Committee
of the Isle of Wight Council on the work undertaken by that Committee to
investigate the current arrangements for delivering ethical standards within
the Isle of Wight Council, and to assess the success of those arrangements.
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INTRODUCTION
1.1
The ODPM
Parliamentary Select Committee, in its report The Role and Effectiveness of the Standards Board for England, published
on 7th April 2005 stated that:
It remains our belief that incidents of misbehaviour
and corruption within local government in England are isolated and atypical.
The majority of local government councillors and officials unflinchingly adhere
to the high standards that Government expect and the public deserve.
1.2
As this report
shows, there is reason to believe that this confident statement is also true of
those who serve the public through membership off, and employment by, the Isle
of Wight Council.
There is, however, no room for complacency.
1.3
During 2004 an
Isle of Wight Councillor was disqualified from holding public office for a
lengthy period of time for bringing his office into disrepute. There have been
disqualifications of two Town/Parish Councillors in recent years.
1.4
Further, there
is evidence of a significant and worrying gap between evidence of generally
high standards of conduct within the Isle of Wight Council (albeit with some
exceptions) and a widespread perception that standards are, endemically and
seriously, lacking.
1.5
To a
significant degree perception is
reality so far as standards of conduct are concerned. Creating a bad impression
is as corrosive in public life as genuinely bad behaviour. It erodes public
confidence in the quality of services; it tarnishes the reputations of institutions
and of individuals; it deters the next generation of talented public servants
from coming forward to offer their services, and it undermines the sense of
community of which the Island is rightly proud.
1.6
The challenges
set out in this report are generally about perception. As such, they are as
serious, and as difficult to address, as any set of challenges rooted in
evidence of serial failures of standards.
1.7
The production
of this report relied on the efforts of numerous people, many of whom gave
freely of their own time. The best thanks which can be given to them is that
the recommendations which have come from their input are pursued
enthusiastically and rapidly.
November 2005
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Bruce Claxton
Standards Committee Chairman
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John Lawson
Monitoring Officer
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Methodology
2.1 The
idea for undertaking the audit, and the core of the methodology, came from a
tool developed by the Improvement and Development Agency.
2.2 That
model was developed for local application. The audit has at times progressed
slowly. In part that was because the Standards Committee wanted to be sure that
the methodology being followed would produce meaningful results.
A detailed methodology is reproduced as Appendix 2.
A Phased Approach
2.3 The
audit was undertaken in three phases. This had the benefit of allowing interim
recommendations to be made and acted upon as the audit progressed. It also
allowed each phase of the audit to be designed in the light of the outcome of
the previous phase. Finally, this approach suits the Standards Committee
environment where the scheduled meetings are relatively far apart.
Phase 1- Desk Top Review
2.4 This
phase asked whether all the structures, policies and documents needed by a well
run council with high standards of ethics and probity were in place, up to
date, fit for purpose and easily accessible. The yardstick for measuring
whether the necessary elements were in place was the IDeA ethical audit tool.
2.5 The
picture was generally positive with no significant gaps in the structures or
documents. There were, however areas which needed improvement. Not all the
documents were consistent with each other, and few were as easily accessible as
they needed to be. A series of interim recommendations were made, and have been
acted upon.
Phase 2
Questionnaire
2.6 If
the structures, policies and documents were generally in place, up to date and
fit for purpose the next step was to assess whether they are widely known about
and whether they are followed or breached.
2.7 A
questionnaire was devised and circulated to the list of people and
organisations at Appendix 3. Response was lower than hoped but nevertheless
some interesting patterns and trends emerged.
2.8 The
conclusions of the questionnaire can be summarised as follow:
a.
The building blocks (ie policies and codes etc)
for high and improving standards of ethics and probity are in place;
b.
The knowledge of these building blocks, how to
access them and from whom to seek advice needs some attention;
c.
The perception is that there is poor regard to
ethics and probity within the Council; however
d.
This is not borne out by evidence of actual poor
regard to ethics and probity; and
e.
There is a clear need to tackle this poor
perception
2.9 The
interim report at this stage therefore identified a potential finding which
needed testing on a group of stakeholders through individual interviews. The
emerging finding was that there is evidence of a gap between actual standards
(which are relatively high) and public/stakeholder perception (which is that
standards are poor).
Phase 3 Individual Interviews
2.10 This phase gave the most insight and the
challenging outcomes.
2.11 There
is, interviewees reported, a great gulf between their own experience of the
local authority and its elected members, and public perception.
2.12 There
is evidence that there are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that
there is still a legacy from previous poor personal conduct. More
significantly, it seems to be that the national focus on standards and probity
as synonymous with personal conduct is not proving helpful on the Island. There
is, among a number of stakeholders, a clear view that performance and
accountability for performance is as important as standards of personal
conduct.
2.13 There
is a separate message about the toll which public service takes on elected
members. This is clearly a moral issue, and one which needs to be accommodated
under the label of ethics and probity if local concerns are to be responded to.
Action Planning
2.14 The
audit needs to be translated into action. The timing of this report is designed
to offer the analysis and recommendations to a new council and to new and
returning councillors. The work done to date, by the Standards Committee leaves
a legacy for the new council in the form of significant challenges, but also
some well founded recommendations for action.
Complementary Work
2.15
The audit has
not been undertaken in isolation but has been explicitly designed not to
replicate or overlap with other work being undertaken. The most closely aligned
piece of work is an audit of the governance arrangements of the local
authority. A summary of that work is set out at Appendix 4.
NB: Appendix 2,
3 and 4 referred to above are attached to the full report.
