The thrust of the report and its recommendations were to try to change institutions so as to emphasize and reinforce ethical behavior, to promote rather than discourage those who would be ethical, to make unethical behavior more difficult to perform and easier to detect.
As always, the trick is to make institutions work to the benefit of individuals not to pretend that all the problems are individual ones. To take institutions seriously and seeks both an analysis of the problems -and the basis of the solution -in terms of the institutions of government.
Making our institutions, government and no government, work better to live up to the ends which justify their existence.
Likewise, ethics can be a part, but not all, of the answer. The problems and answers are to be found in the combination of law, ethics and institutional design. These powerful trios of factors which collectively shape the way our institutions perform form what David Wood called my "trilogy". Researchers were never quite satisfied with this term and have played around with "triad", "triangle" and "troika".
However, it now seems to me that the most appropriate term, if blasphemy can be disclaimed, is "trinity" - a set of elements that can be seen individually but amount to different aspects of a whole.
Let us assume for the moment that the justification of public sector agencies is to serve some stated community value such as educating school children, improving the health of the community or increasing our exports. Such a justification should provide a reason for blocking off avenues by which monies provided for those purposes was expended for other ends and removing incentives for them to do so. At the same time, those institutions would be prevented from doing so at the expense of other values such as human rights.
These avenues may be closed off by criminal or civil sanctions, by regulation, by administrative law, by parliamentary scrutiny (or scrutiny by some specially constituted body such as an Ombudsman), by public accounts committees, by subjecting public sector organizations to standard approval requirements, duties to provide environmental or regulatory impact statements.
However, the justification is also, and primarily, positive. It reminds us what the institution is therefore. As such it justifies having a hospital or health department but the powers to fulfill the function which justifies having that organization in the first place. It is on these grounds that the wide powers of ministers and bureaucrats to carry out their duties would have to be justified. Too often administrative law falls into the trap of trying to ensure that bureaucratic power is not used in a way that it does unintended harm rather than attempting to ensure that it is exercised so as to further the value which justified the power in the first place.
Such justifications offer ready-made purposes for purposive interpretations of the laws establishing a statutory body and the laws through which public officers gain their powers. As such it has the potential to make the law more coherent, more accessible and easier to obey (members of the institution can be reasonably certain that if they act to help the institution realize the values that justify it, then they will be within the letter and spirit of the law).
By such combinations of measures, law should be used to push institutions into fulfilling the purposes that justify them.
As always, the trick is to make institutions work to the benefit of individuals not to pretend that all the problems are individual ones. To take institutions seriously and seeks both an analysis of the problems -and the basis of the solution -in terms of the institutions of government.
Making our institutions, government and no government, work better to live up to the ends which justify their existence.
Likewise, ethics can be a part, but not all, of the answer. The problems and answers are to be found in the combination of law, ethics and institutional design. These powerful trios of factors which collectively shape the way our institutions perform form what David Wood called my "trilogy". Researchers were never quite satisfied with this term and have played around with "triad", "triangle" and "troika".
However, it now seems to me that the most appropriate term, if blasphemy can be disclaimed, is "trinity" - a set of elements that can be seen individually but amount to different aspects of a whole.
Let us assume for the moment that the justification of public sector agencies is to serve some stated community value such as educating school children, improving the health of the community or increasing our exports. Such a justification should provide a reason for blocking off avenues by which monies provided for those purposes was expended for other ends and removing incentives for them to do so. At the same time, those institutions would be prevented from doing so at the expense of other values such as human rights.
These avenues may be closed off by criminal or civil sanctions, by regulation, by administrative law, by parliamentary scrutiny (or scrutiny by some specially constituted body such as an Ombudsman), by public accounts committees, by subjecting public sector organizations to standard approval requirements, duties to provide environmental or regulatory impact statements.
However, the justification is also, and primarily, positive. It reminds us what the institution is therefore. As such it justifies having a hospital or health department but the powers to fulfill the function which justifies having that organization in the first place. It is on these grounds that the wide powers of ministers and bureaucrats to carry out their duties would have to be justified. Too often administrative law falls into the trap of trying to ensure that bureaucratic power is not used in a way that it does unintended harm rather than attempting to ensure that it is exercised so as to further the value which justified the power in the first place.
Such justifications offer ready-made purposes for purposive interpretations of the laws establishing a statutory body and the laws through which public officers gain their powers. As such it has the potential to make the law more coherent, more accessible and easier to obey (members of the institution can be reasonably certain that if they act to help the institution realize the values that justify it, then they will be within the letter and spirit of the law).
By such combinations of measures, law should be used to push institutions into fulfilling the purposes that justify them.
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