Public ethics

The 'public ethics' element of the local government chief executive role involves ethical principles, ehtical cultures, fairness, services, practices and dealing with violations.

  • Ethical principles: rights and liberty of individuals, community and the public good
  • Ethical cultures: cultural variety and dynamism about values
  • Fairness: equal treatment, equal opportunity, relational equality, equity
  • Services: ethics in service design, delivery, resource allocation and staffing
  • Practices: planning, environment, housing and transport compared with people-focused services
  • Violations: investigation and sanctions for ethical breaches and integrity violations

The structure of knowledge, experience and judgement across the practice of public ethics

 

Acquiring knowledge Gaining experience Sharpening judgement
  • Essence of public administrative law

     
  • Foundations of public ethics: in service design, delivery, resource allocation, supply chain management and staffing

     
  • Ethics across cultures: individualism compared with communitarian

     
  • Utility and cost-benefit analysis, including compensation to those who may lose out

     
  • Normative or standards-based approaches to establishing service thresholds, and so on

     
  • The common good: what is it? – the ideas of social value and public value revisited

     
  • The characteristics of a public good compared with targeted services
  • Work closely with the monitoring officer and legal team on basics of public administration law
  • Review three to five ombudsman cases of maladministration with injustice

     
  • Review the council’s compliance with public sector equality duty

     
  • Present to staff some challenging policy issues that raise ethical challenges

     
  • Good intentions are not enough; examine consequences – especially who gains, who loses?

     
  • Bring the voice of those with the most urgent and pressing needs into the town hall
  • Develop a way to help councillors choose a way forward when there are multiple outcomes (for example, when a site in the middle of town can have multiple uses, such as a school, a pool, a housing block or a small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) incubator)

     
  • When there are competing claims from different groups for the same public asset, develop an approach for weighing the claims of each group and choosing between them

     
  • When senior directors are advocating different solutions to a problem you may need to add value to the overall professional advice to councillors to help a rounded judgement to be made

     
  • Sometimes ethical principles are not balanced, they don’t involve a trade-off – you may have to make sure that several are taken on board at the same time

Highlighted pages

Good governance

The 'good governance' element of the local government chief executive role involves unified powers, being reasoned and reasonable, openness, advice, independence and citizenship.

Politics and the political interface

The 'politics and the political interface' element of the local government chief executive role involves impartiality, guiding, politics, political parties, tiers of government, interface and overlaps.