Half-Full or Half-Empty? The Past, Present and Future of British Public Sector Ethics

UK politics and the public sector have in recent years been the subject of inquiries and reviews into standards of conduct and the rules and procedures that regulate the conduct of public business in terms of impartiality and probity. The first major inquiry was held in 1976 and the second, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, in 1995. The latter has also been subject to self-assessments of progress. This article considers the inquiries' major themes and their various recommendations. The author asks whether or not these build on existing standards or seek to address their erosion—a crucial dimension to the impact and effectiveness of reforms both now and in the future. In other words, is the ethical reservoir from which public life has drawn its standards half-full and being replenished or half-empty and slowly leaking away?