Summary#
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill would create new duties and criminal offences, and amend existing laws, including the Inquiries Act 2005, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and legal-aid laws. Its stated goal is to require candour, transparency, frankness and ethical conduct in public service. It is at Report stage in the House of Lords, so it is not law and may change before passage.
- Public authorities and officials would have a statutory duty of candour and assistance in specified inquiries and investigations, including duties to provide relevant information and act promptly and without favour to their own or another person’s position.
- Public authorities would have to promote ethical conduct and take steps to maintain it across the authority. The bill lists principles including integrity, openness, honesty and accountability, and requires a published code of ethical conduct.
- The bill would create offences for failing to comply with the duty, misleading the public, certain seriously improper acts by public-office holders, and breaching a duty to prevent death or serious injury. It would abolish the common-law offence of misconduct in public office in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Regulations could extend the candour duty to other investigations and to some people with relevant public responsibilities. The bill also provides for participation at certain inquiries and investigations where a public authority’s conduct may be at issue.
- The bill does not create a new independent agency. Its duties apply to defined public authorities and officials; the bill’s list includes government, local government, police, NHS bodies, schools and further-education providers.
What it means for you#
- Public authorities and officials: They would have new duties when covered inquiries or investigations concern their acts. The bill also requires authorities to promote ethical conduct and publish a code. It does not, in the material provided, set out one general process for every complaint or investigation.
- People affected by public-authority conduct: The bill would enable people to participate in certain inquiries and investigations. That does not mean everyone affected would automatically get a place or legal aid; eligibility and process are not clear from the supplied text.
- Public-office holders: They could face new criminal offences. The supplied text does not provide enough complete detail to state all the offences’ elements or penalties.
- The public: The bill aims to increase candour and accountability. It does not guarantee that inquiries will reach particular findings or that public bodies will act differently in every case.
Money#
No cost information is in the available material.
- The bill would require public authorities to do work on candour and ethical conduct, but no staffing or cost estimate is supplied.
- It amends legal-aid laws, but the supplied material does not establish who would qualify for funding or what the cost might be.
What is unclear#
- The supplied bill text is fragmentary. It does not show the full definitions, conditions and penalties for the new offences.
- The bill would allow the duty to be extended by regulations. Which additional investigations or people would be covered, and when, is not settled in the supplied material.
- The exact rules for inquiry participation, including who decides and what support is available, are not clear.
- The text refers to codes of ethical conduct but the supplied material does not give all the required details or explain how compliance would be checked.
- The parent Acts were not supplied, so I could not verify how the bill’s amendments compare with current law. The bill says most of its provisions would start on a date set by regulations; the supplied text does not give that date.
Case for#
- A possible argument for the bill is that a clear legal duty could make it harder for public bodies or officials to withhold relevant information or favour their own position during an inquiry.
- Requiring authorities to promote ethical conduct and publish codes could make expected standards more visible within public bodies.
- New offences could provide consequences for serious misconduct or misleading the public, rather than relying only on internal rules.
- Allowing participation in some inquiries could give people affected by public-authority conduct a way to be heard.
Case against#
- One concern is that important details of the offences and their penalties are not clear in the supplied text. Criminal liability based partly on what a person “ought to know” could have serious consequences, so the exact tests matter.
- The duty could be extended through regulations to other investigations and people. That gives ministers or other authorities a role in setting its future reach.
- The bill requires public bodies to create and maintain ethical-conduct measures but gives no cost estimate or clear account of how compliance would be monitored.
- It is unclear how participation at inquiries would work in practice, and whether people affected would have access to legal aid.