Local Government Studies

ISSN: 0300-3930 (Print) 1743-9388 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/flgs20

Maintaining ethical cultures: Self-regulation in

english local government

Stephen Greasley

To cite this article: Stephen Greasley (2007) Maintaining ethical cultures: Self-
regulation in english local government, Local Government Studies, 33:3, 451-464, DOI:
10.1080/03003930701289687

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03003930701289687

Published online: 11 Jun 2007.

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 Local Government Studies,
Vol. 33, No. 3, 451 – 464, June 2007

Themed Papers
Maintaining Ethical Cultures:
Self-Regulation in English Local
Government
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STEPHEN GREASLEY
University of Manchester

ABSTRACT The establishment of an ethical framework to govern councillor conduct

has been an important and controversial aspect of local government reform in England.
Both the detail of the statutory code and the associated system of enforcement have
been subject to criticism. As a result of some of these problems future reform and policy
is likely to rely to a greater extent on local authorities and their standards committees
creating a culture of ethical governance. This paper uses evidence gathered from case
studies in eight English local authorities to describe the methods they use to support
cultures of ethical governance.

Introduction
What makes government trusted and trustworthy is a key question for
policymakers and researchers alike. The question has been one of the main
motives behind reform of local government in England. A new statutory
ethical framework for English local government, introduced along with
reforms of political management structures, puts great emphasis on the
independence of regulation (Local Government Act, 2000). The framework
was intended to address public distrust in local government by providing a
common code of conduct across English authorities and an independent and
transparent means for enforcing that code. Over the four years of its
operation the framework has attracted controversy and in particular it has
been criticised for being overly centralised and legalistic. The critics of the
new ethical framework suggest that local authorities and their standards
committees are in a stronger position than an external body to support a
culture of ethical governance (CSPL, 2005). Lawton and Macaulay (2004)

Correspondence Address: Stephen Greasley, IPEG, Room 3.42 Williamson Building, University
of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL. Email: stephen.greasley@manchester.ac.uk

ISSN 0300-3930 Print/1743-9388 Online Ó 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/03003930701289687
 452 S. Greasley

have characterised the choice between the low road of rules and sanctions
and the high road of supporting cultures of ethical governance. This paper
uses data collected from case studies in English local government to describe
the methods used by local authorities to support an ethical culture and to
identify limitations on local self-regulation.
The first section provides some background information about the design
and operation of the new ethical framework. The second section introduces
some theoretical and conceptual issues relating to public sector ethics and
links them to the paper. The method for collecting and analysing data is
described in the third section. The final substantive section describes the
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main findings of the study.

Policy Context
The new ethical framework introduced by the 2000 Act was a response to a
number of factors. Government was concerned that public distrust was
damaging local democracy (DETR, 1999: para.4.1) and an investigation of the
then existing code found it to be confusing and inconsistently applied (CSPL,
1997). A small number of high-profile examples of misconduct in local
government in the 1990s (Skelcher & Snape, 2001: 75) and a general policy
interest in public sector ethics also helped put probity in local government on
the agenda (OECD, 1996, 2000; Ridley & Doig, 1995). Finally, it has been
argued that the executive models of governance introduced by the 2000 Act
called for stronger external regulation of councillor conduct (Doig & Skelcher,
2001: 106, see also Skelcher & Snape, 2001: 83–86).
The new framework introduced a statutory code of conduct to apply to
members of principal local authorities, parish and town councils, fire, police
and national park authorities and the Greater London Authority. The code
covered requirements on members including the registration and declaration
of interests, registration of gifts and some more general duties, for example
not to bring the authority into disrepute and to avoid the misuse of council
resources. Along with the code a system for enforcement was created which
included two new national bodies – the Standards Board for England (SBE)
and the Adjudications Panel for England (AP). In addition the legislation
required local authorities to establish local standards committees to
adjudicate on the less serious alleged breaches of the code.
When an allegation that a councillor has breached the code of conduct is
made it is initially passed to the SBE to decide whether it requires further
investigation. Those that do require investigation are then passed for
investigation either to one of the SBE’s own ethical standards officers or to
the monitoring officer of the authority concerned. A completed investigation
may conclude: that there is no evidence of a breach of the code; that
although there may be some evidence of a breach no further action needs to
be taken; or, that the case should be passed on for adjudication either to the
national Adjudications Panel for England or to the local authority’s own
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 453

standards committees. A variety of sanctions are available if a councillor is

found to have breached the code, ranging from censure through to
disqualification from public office for various lengths of time.
Although there were good reasons for the development of a new ethical
framework, the way that it was designed and implemented has been
controversial. The structure established by the government was more
centralised than envisaged by some advocates of reform (for example CSPL,
1997). This was partly due to delays in producing regulations to allow the
local elements of the enforcement system to operate. It was June 2003 before
local standards committees were empowered to hold adjudications and
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November 2004 before monitoring officers were in a position to conduct

investigations. In addition there were specific problems with the drafting of
the legislation and initially all decisions on which cases to investigate had to
be made by the board of the SBE. These problems contributed to delays in
processing complaints in the early years of the operation of the framework.
Over the past three financial years the number of complaints received by
the SBE about member misconduct has been between 3500 and 4000 in line
with the working assumptions of the SBE’s business plan (SBE, 2003: 10).
Within this total the proportion coming from fellow councillors has fallen
from 43 per cent in 2002–03, the first full year of operation, to 28 per cent in
2005–06. Although the number of complaints received has remained stable,
a smaller proportion is being referred for investigation. In 2002–03 43
per cent of complaints were referred for investigation whilst in 2005–06 the
figure was 22 per cent. Of the allegations investigated in 2005–06, 22 per cent
were sent for adjudication either locally or to the AP.1
Changes to the management of complaints have been successful in
clearing the backlog which has removed some of the pressure on the system.
But the balance of regulation between a legalistic system and a system based
on values and self-regulation remains an issue. The ethical framework has
evolved throughout its life and that process of change continues. An
investigation was conducted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life
(CSPL, 2005) and the Government’s response to that report discussed future
options to localise and simplify the system (HMSO, 2005). The direction of
reform has been to put greater emphasis on the importance of organisa-
tional culture in ethical governance and the role of local self-regulation. This
paper explores these two issues in detail. The next section reviews relevant
research literature. Models of regulation that involve some delegation of
responsibility are discussed first and then cultural strategies for supporting
ethical organisations.

Literature Review and Research Questions

Centralised systems of regulation can be prone to overload and are often
unable to develop nuanced regulatory responses as problems arise. A
strategy that has been suggested to address these weaknesses is to partially
 454 S. Greasley

delegate regulatory responsibility to the organisation being regulated.

‘Enforced self-regulation’ (Ayres & Braithwaite, 1992) is an example of a
model that gives partial responsibility for regulation to individuals or
committees in organisations. ‘Gatekeeper liability’ is a similar idea drawn
from the corporate governance literature which, it has been suggested,
approximates to the role of the monitoring officer in English local
government (Kirkbride & Letza, 2003).
There are a number of reasons for thinking that a system with some local
self-regulation may be more effective. The first advantage of delegating some
responsibility for probity is that centralised regulators face significant
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information difficulties in assessing if a breach of the rules has occurred,

how it has occurred and who is responsible. A local committee which is part
of the organisation being regulated will be able to respond more quickly and
will face fewer difficulties in accessing the people involved. The second
advantage is that the overall cost of regulation may fall if local authorities
can respond to stop minor infringements of rules before they escalate into
more serious issues. The third advantage is that members who are subject to
the code may be more amenable to advice and persuasive strategies if they
come from inside their organisation rather than from an outside body.
One criticism of ‘enforced self-regulation’ is that it is merely a way for
regulators to divest themselves of running costs and impose them on the
organisations being regulated (Hood et al., 1999: 28). The proponents of
such models, however, suggest that they do more than redistribute the costs
of regulation. Giving a more prominent role to local self-enforcement, it is
argued, can change the nature of a regulatory system. Centralised
frameworks tend towards ‘rules based’ systems of regulation characterised
primarily by compliance, detection and sanction whereas local regulation
gives greater opportunity to focus on a culture of ethical governance relying
on general values, trust and peer enforcement.
A number of weaknesses in ‘rules-based’ strategies can be identified. First, a
system of rules may not be able to cover all the situations that might arise, and if
it attempts to do so it will quickly become complex and difficult to comprehend.
It may also be impossible to capture in precise terms the ‘spirit’ behind the rules,
risking ‘ritualistic’ compliance. Second, if the only regulatory response to
misconduct involves a quasi-judicial investigation there may be significant costs
in managing the system of enforcement to be borne both by the regulator and
the regulated. If local authorities can successfully develop preventative and
persuasive strategies, some costly cases may be diverted from the formal
enforcement apparatus. Third, some authors have suggested that there is
evidence that regulatory systems which are seen as overbearing may ‘crowd out’
the self-motivation of individuals who are subject to them by undermining their
sense of autonomy (Frey & Jegen, 2001; Pettit, 1996).
Criticisms of ‘ethical culture’ strategies focus on the credibility of
regulation. Without credible, independent and consistent enforcement
general principles may remain ‘Sunday concepts’ espoused once a week in
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 455

church without influencing everyday conduct (Bovens, 1998). Even with

genuine attempts to act on public sector values there can be a great deal of
ambiguity about what actions a given principle requires in specific contexts.
A final problem with cultural strategies is that they are much more difficult
to design, implement and monitor than a system of rules and enforcement.
One factor commonly identified in the research literature on creating
ethical organisations is leadership (ICAC, 2000). A number of studies
attempt to link transformational theories of leadership and ethical culture in
organisations (Grojean et al., 2004; Lord & Brown, 2001; Sosik, 2005;
Turner et al., 2002). The emphasis on leadership has been criticised for
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presenting an overly heroic view of leaders’ ability to shape organisations

and also for failing to recognise the dangers of ‘group think’ (Sinclair, 1993).
The studies relating leadership to good conduct in an organisation have
been largely conducted in private sector organisations. The particular
leadership context – especially political competition – in local government
suggests that a straightforward transfer of lessons may be difficult.
Although there is a tension between ‘rules based’ and ‘cultural’ strategies
it does not follow that they are mutually exclusive. Rather, the challenge is
to find the balance between a system that supports self-motivation and
trust whilst still being credible in the face of examples of persistent
misconduct and cynical motivation, ‘the trick of successful regulation is
to establish a synergy between punishment and persuasion’ (Ayres &
Braithwaite, 1992: 25).
While there has been recent policy interest in how ethical organisational
cultures can be supported there has been little research on if and how local
authorities and their standards committees try to achieve this goal. The
research reported here was commissioned by the SBE to explore these issues.
The project had a number of aims, but in this paper the focus is on three
research questions:

What role do standards committees play in supporting ethical

cultures?
What strategies do local authorities use in trying to prevent or respond
to misconduct?
What role do leaders in local authorities play in supporting good
conduct?

The next section outlines the methodology used to address these questions.

Methodology
The paper is based on 61 interviews conducted in eight local authorities
across England in winter 2005–06 (SBE, 2006). The subject of the paper has
not had a great deal of previous research attention so the aims of the
data collection were to explore variation in authorities rather than test
 456 S. Greasley

well-developed theories. With a small number of case authorities it is

impossible to select them to be representative. There were a number of other
factors involved in identifying case studies to approach. Three of the case
studies were selected because they had experienced some serious breakdown
in ethical behaviour over the previous five years. Two out of the eight had
directly-elected mayors and the rest had the leader–cabinet system. Four of
the eight authorities were Labour led (one minority), three were
Conservative and one had a minority Liberal Democrat administration.
There were four metropolitan districts, one shire district, one county, one
unitary and one London borough.
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In each authority we requested interviews with the monitoring officer,

chief executive, council leader and other group leaders, the chair of the
standards committee as well as a selection of other officers and members.
The interviews were semi-structured, typically took 40–60 minutes to
complete and were recorded for reference although not transcribed.
The empirical findings are introduced with a description of the context of
the case study authorities. The role of standards committees and their chairs
is discussed and then the methods used by local authorities to respond to
misconduct as it arises are described.

Research Findings
All but one of our case studies had experienced at least one allegation
being investigated under the new framework. The authority which had
not experienced a case under the statutory framework did deal locally
with a probity issue prior to the 2000 Act. Among the authorities the
place of ethical governance in an organisation’s priorities was closely
related to past experience. In two authorities that had only experienced
isolated problems and where interviewees confirmed there were generally
good member–officer relations the ethical framework had a very low
profile. In the three cases where there had been serious problems in the
past there was inevitably a higher profile for the ethical framework
although not necessarily a consensus amongst interviewees about how it
should operate. This higher profile was reflected in greater attention to
the content and dissemination of organisational rules and values, in the
role of standards committees and chairs in two out of three of the
authorities and the higher salience of the ethical issues to political and
officer leadership roles.

Standards Committees: Lapdog, Watchdog or Guide Dog?2

The 2000 Act required local authorities to establish standards committees.
They were given a number of statutory responsibilities including advising
the council on the adoption of a local code of conduct, monitoring its
effectiveness, ensuring members can access training on the code, promoting
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 457

high standards of conduct for members, holding determinations and

adjudications as required. There is the potential for the committees to
develop a proactive approach to their role, something that has been
encouraged by the Standards Board for England (SBE, 2002). In this section
we look at the different responsibilities of local standards committees in the
case study authorities and the role that independent members play.
Variation in the roles adopted by the standards committees have been
driven partly by national factors (the comprehensive performance assess-
ment, guidance on audit committees) and partly by local views on the
potential and limits of the committees. In all of the authorities extra
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functions beyond the statutory minimum had been written into the terms of
reference of the committee. Six out of the eight standards committees were
given responsibility for oversight of the whistleblowing policy, seven had a
role in responding to or overseeing elements of organisational regulation
(ombudsmen, external audit or corporate complaints policies), six were
involved in overseeing additional protocols such as the member–officer
protocol and five had an additional role related to oversight of the
authority’s constitution. There were also some idiosyncratic roles taken on
by the committees including an advisory role with respect to the local
strategic partnership and the council’s area structures. The number of
meetings varied from one to seven over the year. Committee agendas show
that responding to national consultations and reports appears to be a
significant part of the role of the committee in most of the authorities, other
activity related to drafting and monitoring protocols and training for
conduct of adjudications.
The formal terms of reference and agendas are indicators of what a
standards committee may do but they do not alone determine the way they
conduct their business. There were examples in the authorities of committees
with fairly wide terms of reference which remained largely focused on their
tribunal role. The style of the chair of the committee, its members and the
officer support are also important factors. Three broad types of standards
committees can be identified – lapdogs, watchdogs and guide dogs. Table 1
describes the work undertaken by committees of each type and also
describes the role of independent members.
The lapdog committee is ineffective at playing the regulatory role because
it does not have adequate resources or because there is political influence on
the way the committee works. There were no examples of this type among
the case studies but there was some evidence of party political influence in
the operation of two of the committees. In one authority an interviewee felt
that the presence of the majority group’s party whip on the standards
committee was preventing some issues being discussed. The second
committee had responsibility for recommending constitutional change and
this had caused some political conflict.
The watchdog version of the committee is focused closely on member
conduct, the operation of the statutory code and making sure that members
 458 S. Greasley

Table 1. Three types of standards committee

Work programme Independent member roles

Lapdog Ineffective and politicised Isolated and unable to have any

Watchdog Focused mainly on enforcement, and
closely related to the code of
conduct. Training members,
preparing for adjudications,
monitoring cases elsewhere
Guide dog Wider remit: may include additional
protocols, constitution review,
audit committee functions
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impact
Impartial and detached. Past
experience with tribunals,
e.g. magistrate
‘Fresh pair of eyes’. Managerial
experience, understanding of
organisational process

of the committee are prepared for conducting an adjudication if required.

Four of the eight standards committees fitted best in this ‘tribunal in
waiting’ role. There are positive and negative ways of viewing the watchdog
style. The negative view is that if committees are seen only as enforcement
mechanisms they will not gain support from members. The positive view is
that this approach assumes that members and others in the organisation can
be trusted to be responsible for their own behaviour without having to be
guided by a standards committee. An independent member of the standards
committee in a unitary authority explicitly drew on experience as a
magistrate to support this understanding of the way that the committee
should work.
The guide dog approach to standards committees fulfils the statutory roles
but also sees itself as supportive rather than only regulatory. Work
programmes for this type of committee are wider than for ‘watchdog’
committees and may include a more general overview of training for
members, responsibility for revising protocols and some wider organisa-
tional processes such as overview of whistleblowing procedures and
complaints procedures. Wide terms of reference, however, may not be
acted on in the absence of an enthusiastic chair or monitoring officer. Two
independent chairs from metropolitan boroughs who typified a more active
view of their role are quoted below:

The thing I enjoy most is to drive the agenda so as to avoid the

mantraps. I think there is an appetite to push things at the supportive
end of the business. The most important roles are advice, guidance and
support.

We showed that what we wanted to do was help councillors do their

job well rather than sit in the background waiting for judgement.

A number of factors that limit the scope of the role that standards
committees take on were identified in interviews. There is the question of
legitimacy – in a democratic organisation, how wide a set of functions can
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 459

be given to a committee with a non-elected chair? In three of the case study

authorities this had been the source of some disagreement relating to the
role and actions of the standards committee. A second limiting factor is that
where a wider role is taken on by the committee there may be a greater
chance of party groups trying to influence its work. Duplication was also a
factor: some authorities already have constitution committees, governance
committees, audit committees which overlap with some of the functions that
standards committees might otherwise perform. On the other hand, one
officer we spoke to was reluctant to establish a separate audit committee
with all the associated administrative costs dedicated solely to looking at
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audit and saw the standards committee as a convenient alternative. Finally,

there are limits to the extent to which a committee meeting periodically
through the year can influence organisational culture; this requires a day to
day presence and an ability to respond quickly. Whilst chairs of standards
committees may see value in a wider work programme, other interviewees
who did not work directly with the committees continued to see them as
tribunals.
On the positive side, a more proactive committee and the development
of a work programme can help to make sure that issues of probity are
not sidelined in an organisation. A similar benefit is gained by
performing periodic reviews of the robustness of an organisation’s ethics,
for example by conducting an ethical governance audit. Standards
committees were also seen as useful for focusing organisational attention
on wider aspects of ethical governance including partnerships and new
area structures. These are important positive aspects of the committees’
work but it seems likely that a standards committee alone cannot support
an ethical culture. The rest of the paper discusses two other factors that
may be important. First, how organisations define locally what is
acceptable and how they respond to inappropriate behaviour. Second, the
extent to which the leadership of an organisation tries to support an
ethical culture.

Balancing Rules and Trust

The code introduced by the 2000 Act represents the statutory minimum
required of local authorities. Authorities do have the option of making
additions to the code although very few have done so (Greasley, 2006). A
second option is to develop additional protocols relating to, for example,
member–officer relations or conduct on planning committees. These can
vary considerably from authority to authority. For example, member–
officer protocols in the case studies ranged from a one-page description of
principles underlying the relationship between members and officers to
extensive and detailed documents that describe in detail what information
and support members can expect from officers, in one case outlining how
members and officers should address each other.
 460 S. Greasley

There was keen awareness in our interviews that additional organisational

protocols can accumulate into a system of rules that is complex and difficult
to grasp. Two other types of drawback were raised in interviews. The first
was that the content of the protocols could undermine the proper
democratic role of members – a point that was particularly raised about
planning protocols (this problem existed prior to the ethical framework, see
Stott, 1998). The second was an argument about efficiency that was raised in
one authority in particular. That authority had experienced serious ethical
problems in the past and one of the responses was to develop an extensive
set of rules and procedures for members and officers that was stringently
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monitored. As well as the additional bureaucratic cost of enforcement some

interviewees felt that over-regulation was damaging organisational culture.
A recently appointed senior officer described the situation he found: ‘I
couldn’t believe how many rules and regulations there were. They create a
static, risk averse culture focused on internal processes.’
As well as local choice in the definition of what is deemed acceptable,
there is also some flexibility in how acceptable behaviour is supported and
enforced. Ayres and Braithwaite (1992) suggest that a well-functioning
regulatory system should have at its disposal a hierarchy of responses to
misconduct starting with low-cost persuasive strategies for the least serious
cases escalating in stages to the most serious response. It should only
occasionally rely on its formal machinery and the most serious sanctions.
In the authorities studied, a selection of responses to inappropriate
behaviour were found. There was evidence from all of our cases that
informal peer regulation of conduct occurred. In most of the authorities
this was taken for granted but there were also some examples of deliberate
efforts to encourage such day-to-day regulation. In one authority, for
example, there was a deliberate effort to ensure that officers did not ‘walk
by’ if they saw a member or officer being disrespectful or bullying.
Another of the authorities was developing training for committee chairs to
help them manage meetings in a way that limited the chances of
misconduct arising.
Where problems are more serious, political and officer leadership becomes
involved in enforcing standards of conduct, although the extent of their
involvement varied between authorities. All of the chief executives that were
interviewed did to some extent become involved in mediating and
attempting to resolve conflict between members and officers. The role of
party groups was also a feature in most of the authorities. One chief
executive who had joined the authority after it had experienced a major
breakdown in ethical governance described bringing together political
leaders and insisting that they played a role in enforcing good conduct
among members. This can be a difficult role for leaders who need to
maintain support within the group. One strategy used by both political and
officer leadership was to initially present any action as trying to keep
members out of trouble and avoid a referral to the SBE.
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 461

The leadership role, as seen by interviewees, goes beyond the informal

enforcement of values and norms. The modelling of behaviour by senior
officers and politicians was seen as an important influence over the culture of
an organisation. ‘Organisations are mirrors of their leaders’, as the political
leader of a unitary authority put it. The salience to leaders of organisational
ethics and the way they approached it varied with the past experience of the
authority. In one of the authorities that had experienced a serious ethical
breakdown, the chief executive highlighted the importance of re-establishing
the credibility of the leadership in the eyes of the rest of the organisation.
A key question for local authorities is under what circumstances should
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non-statutory methods be used and when should the statutory system be

turned to? Some of the relevant considerations identified in interviews were
persistence of inappropriate behaviour, whether the complaint was related
to discrimination or financial impropriety, the level of experience of the
person involved, and an assessment of motivation for the behaviour.

Conclusions
The system for managing conduct in English local government is in the
process of being reformed to simplify the code of conduct and put greater
emphasis on local self-regulation and supporting organisational cultures
(Lawton & Macaulay, 2004). This raises the question of whether local
authorities and their leaders recognise a need for local action to support
ethical cultures, whether they are willing and able to take these actions.
This paper has discussed the reasoning behind the move to a more
cultural approach to supporting good conduct and described how this is
happening in eight local authorities. The picture is varied, with some
standards committees more comfortable with the wider role than others. In
the case study authorities important factors influencing their work style
include the beliefs, experience and capacities of the chairs and the
monitoring officer, whether other elements of the authority were already
addressing particular aspects of the ethical environment and whether past
experience had made ethics highly salient. To a large extent those
interviewed who did not work directly with the standards committee saw
it as being a tribunal in waiting.
Even where a standards committee has taken a more active role it can
only be as part of the organisational infrastructure to support good conduct.
In the absence of a joint effort by different aspects of the organisation it is
unlikely that an ethical culture will be robust. The paper discussed two
important aspects – the informal processes of enforcement of good conduct
which occur within organisations and in particular the role of leadership
within these processes and more widely.
The first point to make is that although the formal apparatus of the
ethical framework is the most visible element, in many authorities it rests on
top of a wider base of informal peer monitoring and informal enforcement.
 462 S. Greasley

The existence of these informal methods, where effective, diverts minor

issues from the formal system and can help ameliorate overload of the
central organisations and lessen the chances of tit-for-tat complaints. In the
case studies, it is largely members and senior officers who are involved in
informal enforcement activity rather than the independent members of
standards committees.
All standards committees have responsibility for determining allegations
either passed down from the SBE or investigated locally but they can also
take on a wider role supporting an ethical culture. In only one of the
standards committees was the understanding of the role limited to
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responding to allegations. However, in local authorities that have not

experienced any apparent difficulties standards of conduct can slip off the
agenda. Standards committees working to a programme, ensuring there is a
programme of training relating to the ethical issues, periodically performing
a general assessment of conduct in the authority can help keep the ethical
framework on the agenda.
Whilst the informal processes of enforcement of good conduct and the role
of leaders are important, they also help to identify the limits of local self-
regulation of ethics. Some of the recent high-profile examples of misconduct
and organisational breakdown in English local government have been about
the conduct of leaders and conflict between different leaders. When faced
with such cases local authorities may struggle to produce effective self-
regulation. This is exactly the dilemma that the ‘responsive regulation’
proposed by Ayres and Braithwaite (1992) was aimed at addressing. In the
early operation of the new ethical framework the number of complaints being
processed by the centre overwhelmed the system, with local enforcement
activity taking a back seat. The insights from responsive regulation suggest
that these problems do not justify the abolition of independent and national
regulation, because a reliance only on self-regulation also has dangers. Self-
regulation is at its most effective when there is a credible threat of escalation.

Acknowledgements
The research reported in this paper was funded by the Standards Board for
England. I would like to thank the other members of the research team:
Lorraine Johnston; Gerry Stoker and Francesca Gains and also Gary
Hickey and Paul Hoey at the Standards Board for England and two
anonymous referees. The content of the paper is the responsibility of the
author alone.

Notes
1 These figures are available at: http://www.standardsboard.co.uk/Casesummaries/Monthly
StatisticalDigest (accessed 21 November 2006).
2 These categories are suggested in Ashworth et al. (2002).
 Self-Regulation in English Local Government 463

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