(Image credit: Civil Service College)
In 1994, then UK prime minister John Major appointed a
senior judge named Michael Nolan as chair of the newly formed Committee on
Standards in Public Life. And he asked the committee to produce a report within
six months. The terms of reference were: “to examine current concerns about
standards of conduct of all holders of public office, including arrangements
relating to financial and commercial activities, and make recommendations as to
any changes in present arrangements which might be required to ensure the
highest standards of propriety in public life.” This need arose because of a
number of scandals around that time, notably the “cash for questions” scandal.
The resulting report, published in 1995, was entitled “Standards
in Public Life.” It can be downloaded here: [[i]].
The original statement of the principles, as “The Seven Principles of Public
Life,” is on page 14. But the wording, having evolved over the intervening
almost 30 years, is now significantly different from that in the original. The latest
wording can be found here: [[ii]].
Who do the principles apply to?
The preamble says that the principles: “apply to anyone who
works as a public office-holder. This includes all those who are elected or
appointed to public office, nationally and locally, and all people appointed to
work in the Civil Service, local government, the police, courts and probation services,
non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs, aka quangos), and in the health,
education, social and care services.” It goes on: “All public office-holders
are both servants of the public and stewards of public resources. The
principles also apply to all those in other sectors delivering public services.”
That covers, in my estimation, pretty much anyone whose job
is paid for with taxpayers’ money, and who has any influence at all on
government policies or on their implementation or enforcement. We, the people of
the UK, should therefore be entitled to expect that everyone in government,
including politicians at all levels, civil servants in all government
departments, quangocrats, police, court staff, and all staff in all the major
government service providers and their contractors, will keep strictly to, and
always bear in mind, these principles in everything they do in their jobs.
According to the Good Government Institute, the Nolan principles
have proved influential, and are enshrined in codes of conduct across the UK
public sector, from schools and government departments to hospitals. They have
also been incorporated into the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code and
the Civil Service Management Code. And many local authorities, charities and
educational and healthcare bodies claim to adhere to the principles.
Let us now look at what each of the principles says.
Selflessness
“Holders of public
office should act solely in terms of the public interest.”
A question here: exactly what does “the public interest”
mean in the context of democratic government? The usual meaning is “the benefit
or well-being of the public.” Here, “the public” must be considered both as an
aggregate, and as a group of individuals, each of whom must receive benefit or
well-being.
I am reminded of John Locke’s definition of “the public
good.” That is: “…the good of every particular member of that society, as far
as by common rules it can be provided for.” So, I interpret this principle as
requiring holders of public office to act for the benefit of each and every
member of the public who pay their wages. And not for the benefit of any
particular set of interests, including their own, those of their friends, or
those of political party agendas or lobbying groups.
And how well do they keep to it? An obvious example of one
that didn’t keep to it is former Tory MP Owen Paterson, disgraced for his
advocacy for companies to which he himself was a consultant, that led to
multi-million-pound government contracts for those companies.
But I see a wider question as well. If a political policy
goes against the public interest, or its costs to the public are greater than
the benefits to that same public, are not office holders who promote or support
that policy breaking the Nolan selflessness principle? After all, government is
supposed to be for the benefit of the people. Is it not?
Integrity
“Holders of public
office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or
organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work.
They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other
material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must
declare and resolve any interests and relationships.”
Owen Paterson, very obviously, broke this principle too. But
there is, again, a wider question to be asked. Over recent decades, politicians
have repeatedly taken on, without our say-so, obligations to, or policy ideas
from, external actors. Most notably, the EU, the UN, the World Economic Forum,
and multi-national corporations including Big Pharma. These obligations then
result in policies being imposed on people in the UK, that go against our
interests.
Such policies include all those that have been imposed on us
through EU directives, or through agreements with the UN. These include its
Sustainable Development Goals and “Agenda 2030,” and particularly projects of its
World Health Organization. Today, these policies include, at least, “nett
zero,” the extremist approach to air pollution called “clean air,” and the
WHO’s “vision zero” road safety scheme.
To make commitments to external parties to impose such
policies goes against any idea of democracy, or government of the people by the
people. So, are those that promote those commitments, and support those
policies, not also violating the Nolan integrity principle?
Objectivity
“Holders of public
office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the
best evidence and without discrimination or bias.”
Many environmental policies, in particular, are set on the
basis of political commitments made, without any explicit consent from the
people, to external actors like the UN and its WHO. And they are set without
any regard to their costs, or to the fact that their benefits to the people are
highly dubious, if indeed there are any at all. Some decisions, indeed, are made
on the basis of no evidence at all – for example, the “climate crisis”
declaration of May 2019.
As to decisions being made on merit, in 2020 incoming
chancellor Rishi Sunak had the “green book,” which sets the rules for how
public sector projects are to be assessed, changed: [[iii]].
Reasons given were that “the process relied too heavily on cost-benefit
analysis,” and there was “insufficient weight given to whether the proposed
project addressed strategic policy priorities.” This seems to imply that
policies governments deem to be strategic, including “nett zero,” are to be
exempt from cost-benefit analysis from the point of view of the people they are
supposed to be serving! No matter how damaging the effects of those policies
will be on us.
Moreover, are not disguising, understating or suppressing
the costs of a policy, or overstating its benefits, or failing to do an honest,
objective cost-benefit analysis from the point of view of the people affected
by it, themselves also violations of the principle? Those who do these things
are certainly not behaving as “both servants of the public and stewards of
public resources.”
But there’s more. In recent decades, successive
governments have more and more picked on scapegoats to be punished, without any
impartiality or consideration of merits. For example, small businesses were
closed down during COVID, while many larger companies and government offices
could continue to operate. And I myself have suffered the destruction of my
career as a software consultant through a bad tax law called IR35, supported
and strengthened by Labour and Tories alike.
Meanwhile, car drivers have been particularly singled out
as scapegoats for heavy taxes and fines, with drivers of some new cars hit for
more than £5,000 yearly in vehicle excise duty from April 2025. And the latest
victims of Labour’s schemes of plunder are family businesses, and most of all,
farmers.
Government, if it is to be legitimate, must act not only in
the interests of the people as a whole, but also in the interests of every
individual among the governed. Real criminals excepted, of course. So, those
that set discriminatory policies, as in my list above, are clearly violating
the Nolan objectivity principle.
Accountability
“Holders of public
office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must
submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”
Accountability is another word, whose meaning is not as
clear as it ought to be. If A is accountable to B, does this mean that B has a
legal right to claim recompense from A if A’s actions cause damage to B? If A
is government, that certainly isn’t how things work today! Lack of
accountability by the “sovereign” for its actions is built in, at a fundamental
level, to the Westphalian state system, under which we are forced to live
today.
But the idea of scrutiny suggests at least that the
decisions of office holders should be routinely audited, by independent and
unbiased parties, for compliance with this and all the other principles –
selflessness, integrity, objectivity, openness, honesty, leadership. Decisions
that fail the test on any of these grounds should not be implemented. And
should those, that have made such bad decisions, and thereby damaged the lives
or prosperity of the people, not also be required to compensate the victims? Or
punished, or sacked, if that is merited?
Does such an auditing process happen today? Not a chance.
Openness
“Holders of public
office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner.
Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and
lawful reasons for so doing.”
The recent machinations of both Tory and Labour
governments are, surely, far from open and transparent. How about the Tories’
2020 ruse that exempted projects labelled strategic, including nett zero, from
any requirement for cost-benefit analysis? Or Labour’s recent breaking of their
manifesto commitment not to raise National Insurance rates?
As for information being withheld… There is an entire
industry, both within government and nominally private, whose mission is to
prevent truths inconvenient to the establishment from reaching the general
public en masse. One example of such a truth is the huge increase in
excess deaths since the roll-out of COVID vaccines. Another is that the “science”
behind the climate change narrative, and thus behind nett zero, is
fundamentally flawed.
Honesty
“Holders of public
office should be truthful.”
That politicians routinely lie, is today a truism. Tony
Blair’s lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction have even given
rise to a popular anagram of his name!
But in my view, honesty needs far more than mere
truthfulness. It requires also candidness – that is, telling the whole
of the relevant truth. It requires straightforwardness – not attempting to
mislead, conceal, confuse or obfuscate. And it requires sincerity – that is,
the absence of pretence or deceit.
Do politicians and other office holders today behave with
honesty in all its aspects? Don’t make me laugh.
Leadership
“Holders of public
office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others
with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles
and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
While this is a fine sounding statement, I don’t think it
goes nearly far enough. Holders of public office ought always to reflect their
stated principles in their own behaviours. They must always practise what they
preach. And any kind of hypocrisy is totally unacceptable. Hypocrisy should be
a dismissal offence.
Thus, for example, those that promote, support, make or
enforce “nett zero” or policies that flow from it, must themselves be seen to
live a nett zero lifestyle. There must be no flying to climate conferences
(most of all in private jets), or arriving by helicopter to give speeches on
reducing CO2 emissions. Those that want to force others to stop
driving cars, or flying in planes, or eating meat, must themselves give up
those very conveniences and pleasures. And those, that want to phase out the
use of fossil fuels, should themselves stop using fossil fuels, and products
made using them, altogether. Then, we will be able to see whether or not an
economy mired in the UN’s “sustainability” rhetoric is actually sustainable.
Assessment of the principles
The Nolan Principles are considered, in general, to have
been a success. One reason is that they are attractive to ordinary people,
because they accord with a common-sense understanding of what is right and what
is wrong. However, by 2020 some commentators were suggesting that, due to the
Tory government’s behaviour over COVID, we had reached a “post-Nolan age.”
Suggestions have been put forward over the years that the
principles might be made more explicit, or tightened, or even added to.
Reactions to these ideas have been mixed. But what is, to me, the most obvious
question does not seem to have been asked. That is: Why not just enforce the
damned things? After all, most individuals in government employ have signed a
contract committing to upholding the Nolan principles. So, why not call out
those that have broken their contracts? Fine them, sack them, even cancel their
pensions? Saves money, too.
Local government under Reform
Reform UK has recently taken power in several county
councils, including Kent and Greater Lincolnshire. In those places, they have
begun to implement a project called DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency,
based on the model piloted in the USA by Donald Trump and (for a while) Elon
Musk. UK DOGE seems, from all I have read about it, to be entirely a financial
exercise. Identify areas of fat, and excise them.
That’s fine, as far as it goes. But might it not be even
more powerful, if combined with auditing the ethical basis on which decisions
have been made? Would, perhaps, a programme of “Nolan Audits,” identifying
failures of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness,
honesty and leadership among both elected councillors and local government
employees, yield significant benefits to us, the people? Particularly while we
are struggling under a burden of ever-increasing local taxes? Much of which are
used to fund stuff like cycle paths and 20mph speed
limits, that we neither need or want? Or to have police or cameras lying in
wait to catch us out driving a smidgeon above some arbitrary limit that wasn’t
even there 20 years ago?
Introducing DOGGHIE
My friends, I suggest to you an extension of the DOGE
project, which I call DOGGHIE. That is, the Department of Good Government,
Honesty, Integrity and Efficiency. It will combine current DOGE projects with
what I call Nolan Audits.
It will seek to deliver good government, because it will
ensure that all decisions made are in the interests of the people served.
It will seek to deliver truthfulness, honesty, candour,
straightforwardness and sincerity in every interaction that government has with
the people it is tasked to serve.
It will expose, and ridicule, hypocrisy in all its forms.
It will not allow external parties, such as the UN, EU and
WEF, to influence in any way how people in the UK live their daily lives.
It will make all its decisions objectively and justly, based
on the evidence, the whole evidence, and nothing but the evidence. It will not
discriminate for or against anyone, except on the basis of how they behave.
It will hold decision makers and implementers responsible
for the effects of their actions, and will order reparations or punishments as
demanded by justice.
Good DOGGHIE!
