What next for standards in public life? Tackling identity fraud by civil servants, Lords and MPs is top of my list.

I presented the issue in person to the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Last week I went to a seminar at the Institute for Government which discussed the past and the future of the Committee on Standards in Public Life as the Committee celebrates its 30th anniversary. It is available to view here: What next for standards in public life? | Institute for Government.

The event was chaired by Tim Durrant, Programme Director at the Institute for Government. The guest speaker was Doug Chalmers CB DSO OBE, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The panel included:

• Pippa Crerar, Political Editor at The Guardian

• Daniel Greenberg CB, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards (attended remotely)

• Dame Glenys Stacey, Chair of the Office for Environmental Protection.

Tim Durrant opened the discussion by reminding us that the Committee on Standards in Public Life was established “with the remit to examine current concerns about standards of conduct of all holders of public office including arrangements relating to financial and commercial activities and to make recommendations about any changes in present arrangements which might be required to ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life.”

The Committee has been influential in responding to some of the biggest scandals and standards breaches with recommendations leading to the establishment of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, the Electoral Commission.

Doug Chalmers Chair of the Committee since Decenber 2023, invoked 1994 by reminding us that Take That topped the charts, The Channel tunnel opened, apartheid ended in South Africa and Nelson Mandela became Prime Minister, and the cash for questions scandal erupted as a result of Mohammed Al Fayed, then owner of Harrods, paying two MPs for questions to be asked in the House of Commons. It was that scandal that motivated Prime Minister John Major to establish the standing Committee on Standards in Public Life.

The Committee, chaired by Lord Nolan, a senior judge, published a report in 1995 restating the values expected of those in public service, now known as the seven Nolan principles; Honesty, openness, objectivity, selflessness, integrity, accountability and leadership. These coupled with three “golden threads” are necessary for ensuring standards: 1. codes of conduct 2. independent scrutiny and 3. education. This work brought about significant changes, establishing regulators we now take for granted.

Doug Chalmers went on to say: “Transparency alone does not simply translate into greater public trust, just following the rules doesn’t build trust, context is needed as well. (…) I believe there is a positive story to tell. The effectiveness of the Nolan principles in permeating our public life, the way they are familiar to nurse, local government, police and MPs as the baseline of expected conduct is a clear success.

The principles aren’t rules, the context specific codes of conduct set those, but they are a shared understanding of the values we expect in our liberal democracy. In effect they are the spirit rather than the letter. And yes, they are unenforceable and open to interpretation, nevertheless these seven words set the framework in the UK as the agreed standards that the public expect of those in public life and they set the lens through which judgements should be made. The committee’s role as a workshop for running repairs was really an experiment back in the ‘90s in response to a crisis but its independent, unbiased and careful work, stepping back, taking evidence from a wide range of voices and making recommendations to improve standards has proven influential and worthwhile. That’s not to say the scandals haven’t happened, they have, and the work of a free media has played a big part in helping to scrutinise and hold office holders to account but so has diligent work of many officials, parliamentarians and experts in helping to lead and deliver standards changes.

Ethical culture requires constant attention. The unglamorous but really important stuff of regular reviews of codes of conduct, regular publication of registers of interests needs to be seen as a priority.

Organisations from hospitals to Parliament must evolve over time as new risks emerge and understanding of good practice develops. There are factors that leaders in organisations should play close and regular attention to. Our forthcoming report which is looking into how organisations can spot early warning signs of when things go wrong and react appropriately will illustrate this.

The Government has proposed an overarching ethics and integrity commission and we look forward to working with that body although its structure and remit are at this point still unclear. No matter how good this new institution is the work will not be finished, issues change, problems evolve, cracks appear and standards need to keep pace with these developments and the public’s expectations.”

As soon as I could, I drew attention to my findings of widespread identity fraud in the public service and the refusal of authorised bodies to address this breach of the law that has undermined the integrity of our institutions.

My interjection begins at 33:51:

“I’ve observed a worrying trend of civil servants and many politicians having registered multiple identities in Companies House. The way accounts, auditors and KYC checks work is that you are supposed to have one unique identifier and all of your appointments associated to that identifier. But if you leave out your middle name it appears that Companies House gives you a second unique identifier and then it’s really easy to conceal interests that you then fail to declare. I’ve noticed this and raised many complaints with Mr Greenberg. He has addressed the failure to declare interests and made those MPs declare those interests but he says that the multiple identities in Companies House is beyond his remit. The suggestion is that you should take it to Action Fraud because it is a breach of Section 1082 of the Companies Act (2006) to have multiple identities the problem is Action Fraud won’t act on it and when I do compliance assessments of the leadership of Action Fraud I find that they too have multiple identities so they have no incentive to address it. How could the Committee address this significant breach of transparency as well as breach of the law? Remember that declaring interests in the register of interests is a legal requirements and when you don’t put your interests in the Register of Interest, that’s a breach.”

Tim Durrant, referring to my question said “I don’t know if, Daniel or Glenys, I think the question is quite a specific one but, in terms of, it seems to me it’s about how we can encourage politicians, senior civil servants, the wider leaders in public life to abide by these standards. I mean it comes back to culture again doesn’t it, this is all about leadership, it’s about expectations. The sort of specific case of registering companies under multiple names, that..”

Dame Glenys Stacey interjected “Yes and I wasn’t aware of that and I’m not really able to comment on that. It sounds worrisome”.

Daniel Greenberg stepped in “Perhaps I can pick that up. My advice note to members on registration reminds them of the importance of ensuring that the arrangements they make for registering and declaring do indeed provide real transparency within the meaning and spirit of the Nolan Principles and there is nothing about company registration or dual identities that prevents somebody from ensuring that that is, that they provide meaningful transparency.”

Tim Durrant “Thank you I’m going to move to some questions online”.

Alison interrupts “That’s not right.”

Tim: “Well, we can continue this conversation afterwards.”

Afterwards, I spoke to Glenys, who said she had no idea that people were creating multiple identities in Companies House and that it didn’t sound right but she felt she couldn’t do much about it with her remit in Environmental Protection. I explained that this method of compromising audits and KYC was widespread across industries and I encouraged her to search in Companies House for the names of those she is dealing with to ensure she is aware of all their interests and if they have multiple identities registered.

I waited my turn to speak to Doug Chalmers. He said that he had made a note of the issue and will follow it up. I told him about this Substack with my reports covering MPs, Lords, Police and Crime Commissioners, Judicial Appointments Commissioners etc, including the present and most recent Prime Ministers.

The Nolan principles, while serving as a moral compass for public servants, are indeed enforceable as they are underpinned by legal requirements for transparency and accountability, such as the obligation to declare interests and comply with company registration laws. Its concerning that Mr Chalmers appears to be unaware of this.