Standards Board for England
The Standards Board for England provides an independent, national
overview of how local authorities promote and improve the ethical
behaviour of their members.
We
assist local authorities in this work by providing support and guidance,
as well as investigating cases which it is inappropriate for authorities
to deal with themselves. We are a non-departmental public body, set up
by an Act of Parliament.
The Standards Board for England firmly believes that citizens should
both expect and experience high standards of behaviour and probity
wherever decisions are taken or resources allocated that affect lives
and communities. Working in partnership should not compromise this.
Previous research undertaken for the Standards Board for England by the
University of Manchester (Greasley et al, 2006)[1]
highlighted the problems of organisations when they come to work
together - they found
differences in organisational culture, openness and transparency,
inconsistency in the codes of conduct that partners work to and
differences in how codes of conduct are enforced.
Such differences cannot be overcome using a ‘one size fits all’ approach
to governance because partnerships vary in size, in complexity and in
how much money they spend. What is needed therefore is an agreement that
is proportionate to the risk involved in terms of the extent of the
decision-making power of the partnership. It needs to make sure that it
does not duplicate any existing regulatory safeguards of the different
partners, but that it is a credible enough arrangement to ensure the
public have confidence in it.
As a minimum, what is required is for local authorities to agree some
shared values and standards of conduct with their partners at the outset
of any joint working. These may be different for each and every
partnership.
The focus of this research is on setting the tone for the culture of
partnership working through agreeing what good behaviour looks like at
the outset. It will achieve this through producing, in partnership with
Manchester City Council and in consultation with Manchester City
Council’s partner organisations in the region, a description of
appropriate behaviour.
This description will be based on the Nolan Principles and the
experiences and needs of Manchester City Council and its partner
organisations.
It will articulate what appropriate behaviour looks like in day-to-day
partnership working. It will be flexible and relevant to a wide range of
organisations enabling organisations involved in partnerships to adapt
it and sign up to it.
Following this research it is the intention to promote the work amongst
organisations in the region in order to prompt them to sign up to the
agreement when working in partnership with Manchester City Council.
It is our intention that the work and learning from this project will be
used as a basis for providing guidance nationally on what appropriate
behaviour in partnership working should look like.
[1]
Greasley et al, The Components of an
ethical environment, Institute for Political and Economic
Governance,