Auditing Public Sector Ethics

In September 2010 I wrote an article on changes that would improve UK public sector audit. I suggested or implied that considerable change to the machinery of government would help. In particular I see no need for a political layer between central government and delivery and suggested that end to end audit of programmes of activity would be more useful than the current fragmentary approach which has more to do with the central government structure that has emerged from historical chance than it does with effective service delivery (see blog entitled public sector audit and public sector programme accounting)


Since then I have not observed any significant improvement in the accountability brought about by the restructured audit arrangements within the UK except for appointment of single body to audit central and local government.


Two years on I have concluded that the changes I suggested would still be beneficial but that there is something more that an audit office can contribute in the form of feeding into the consideration of the practicality and ethics of policies formulated centrally. It seems to me that Parliament, and hence its auditors, is responsible for ethical as well as effectiveness considerations.


One example is the policies of regressive taxation that the current government has put in place and the targeting of those with special needs. Neither is morally defensible and both might usefully be discussed by the Public Accounts Committee.


The responsibility to comment on the ethics as well as effectiveness is particularly important for the public sector but might also be of interest to private sector stakeholders.