Public Administration Select Committee Research Articles

Learning from mistakes: What leagues won't do

British Journal of Healthcare ManagementVol. 22, No. 4 CommentLearning from mistakes: What leagues won't doPolly PascoePolly PascoeSearch for more papers by this authorPolly PascoePublished Online:20 Apr 2016https://doi.org/10.12968/bjhc.2016.22.4.206AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Department of Health (2015) Learning not blaming: The government response to the Freedom to Speak Up consultation, the Public Administration Select Committee report ‘Investigating Clinical Incidents in the NHS’, and the Morecambe Bay Investigation. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445640/Learning_not_blaming_acc.pdf (accessed 5 April 2016) Google ScholarDepartment of Health (2016) Learning from mistakes league. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/learning-from-mistakes-league (accessed 31 March 2016) Google ScholarHewitt T, Chreim S, Forster A, Vanderloo S Backman C (2015) Fix and forget or fix and report: a qualitative study of tensions at the front line of incident reporting. BMJ Qual Saf 24(1): 303–10. doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003279 Crossref, Google ScholarMcIntosh B, Voyer, B (2012), A Perverse psychological contract. British Journal of Healthcare Management 18(6): 290–91 Link, Google ScholarReason J (1998) Achieving a safe culture: theory and practice. Work and Stress 12(3): 293–306 Crossref, Google ScholarVoyer B, McIntosh B (2013) The psychological consequences of power on the self-perception of leaders and followers—implications for leadership research. Leadership and Organization Development Journal 34(7): 639–60 Crossref, Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 April 2016Volume 22Issue 4ISSN (print): 1358-0574ISSN (online): 1759-7382 Metrics History Published online 20 April 2016 Published in print 2 April 2016 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

Investigating clinical incidents: conclusions and recommendations.

In the second of a two-part column, John Tingle discusses the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) report on investigating clinical incidents in the NHS.

Investigating clinical incidents in the NHS: a future road map.

In the first of a two-part article, John Tingle discusses the House of Commons’ Public Administration Select Committee report on investigating clinical incidents in the NHS.

The ombudsman as democratic ‘alternative’: Reading the EU Consumer ADR Directive in the light of the PASC reports

This article considers the potential impact of the EU Consumer ADR Directive on the future development of public-sector ombudsmen in the UK. It suggests that, whilst the Directive might constructively encourage the reinforcement of consumer rights, any such tendency towards consumerism in the development of the ombudsman institution should be balanced by respect for the distinctive qualities of public-sector ombudsmen as agents of a form of participatory democracy. This disciplined reading of the Directive points towards the need to heed the recommendations, and underlying thinking, of the report on the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman by the Public Administration Select Committee in 2014.

What Future for the Ombudsman?

AbstractThe ombudsman institution, in both the public and private sectors, is increasingly identified with the ethos of consumerism and the protection of consumer rights. The current trend is exemplified and reinforced by the EU ADR Directive and by the government response to a recent inquiry into complaints conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee. This article argues that the dominant consumerist ethos diminishes the ability of the ombudsman institution to fulfil its potential. If the ombudsman institution, in particular as manifest in the office of the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, is to serve the public interest, it must instead promote human rights principles and constitutional morality, adopt a process that is marked by public reasoning and participation and seek by a whole‐system approach to realise a vision that is integrated and truly democratic.

Complexity, strategy and the national interest

In 2010, and in anticipation of a controversial and contested Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the UK House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) issued a stinging critique of strategy making in the UK, accusing the government of having ‘all but lost the capacity to think strategically’ (PASC 2010, p. 3). Two years later, in 2012, it was still lamenting ‘the government’s inability to express coherent and relevant strategic aims’ (PASC 2012, p. 38). These criticisms have been echoed in the strategic studies and foreign policy analysis literature, including calls for a revival of grand narratives of national interest to drive strategic practice (Layton 2012, pp. 59–60), for a new relationship between political decision-making and professional expertise in strategy making (Strachan 2006, pp. 77–80) and the reinvigoration of institutional capacities for strategic thinking and action in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and elsewhere (Cornish and Dorman 2010, pp. 408–409). Related themes are apparent too in the burgeoning literature on risk, which identifies distinct challenges of strategic practice associated with contemporary patterns of complexity, uncertainty and interdependence and calls for better strategy making in response (Rasmussen 2006, pp. 203–206).

Report of the Council for 2011

Report of the Council for 2011

Integrity management and the public service ethos in the UK: patchwork quilt or threadbare blanket?

This article focuses on integrity management in contemporary UK public life. Despite traditionally high standards of integrity in the public service, it has recently been argued that the UK’s approach resembles a patchwork quilt of poorly defined institutional roles, questionable independence, and contested notions of how best to disseminate and uphold ethical practice. The article traces how the British public service ethos (PSE), which places emphasis on informal codes of conduct and moral integrity, has evolved within broader systemic changes to the style of public service delivery. It is argued that pressures to decentralize public service delivery sit in tension with, and feed into, piecemeal attempts to centralize and codify integrity management. This dynamic is presented in terms of the tension between compliance-based and values-based approaches to integrity management. The article is structured in three parts. The first traces the evolution of the British public service ethos in order to situate integrity management in both its institutional and structural context. The second addresses recent academic debates and recommendations from key bodies such as the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) and the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC). It is shown how recommendations to create independent statutory bodies of ethical oversight have not been fully implemented. The third part seeks to place the UK experience within a broader context. In doing so, the article reflects on ways in which we can understand the concept and application of integrity management within and beyond the UK experience. Point for practitioners The article discusses the tensions between values-based and compliance-based approaches to integrity management in the United Kingdom. It seeks to explore how the former is closely linked to the existence and reproduction of what has been termed a ‘public service ethos'. As that ethos has been challenged by reforms associated with New Public Management, a series of scandals in the public sector has given rise to the adoption of more compliance-based responses. The key challenge for those designing approaches to integrity management is to reconcile the core values which underpin the public service ethos with accountability mechanisms that can be assessed on the basis of measurable performance indicators.

The Emergence of a ‘New’ Ethical Framework for Civil Servants

This article considers the increasing codification of the conduct of permanent civil servants in the UK over the past quarter of a century. It examines the demise of traditional approaches and traces the development of a ‘new’ ethical framework. It does so by examining the work of various public bodies, for example the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Public Administration Select Committee. It sets these changes in the context of management changes in government and the changing nature of the relationships between ministers and civil servants. The author suggests that developing a ‘new’ ethical framework on the basis of traditional values and constitutional ‘certainties’ is the wrong answer to a misidentified problem.

The Challenge of Change in the Civil Service: 2004 in Retrospect

This is an article of record. It presents information about what has happened in relation to the British Civil Service in the last year or so, analyses that information and presents a discussion of it. The article has no methodological pretensions, and is essentially based on official documents and other publicly available records or information. Three of the most important of these sources are: first, the evidence and report of the Hutton Inquiry, which revealed much about the inner workings of government; secondly the report of the subsequent Butler Inquiry; and thirdly, the report of the Gershon Inquiry on the delivery of public services and the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which partly dealt with some of the matters raised in the Gershon report. There is one other set of documents that provides an overall framework for discussion, and these relate to a ‘Civil Service Reform Event’ held in February 2004, addressed by the Prime Minister and the Head of the Civil Service. These documents reveal the attitudes of those in charge of the civil service and, as with the other documents discussed, contain information and recommendations that are vital to understand changes in the civil service over the period under review, and potential changes for the future. To some extent this is countered by the thoughtful deliberations of the Public Administration Select Committee, which published a report including a draft Civil Service Bill, but the overriding impression, despite lip-service to the contrary, is of a government out of sympathy with public service.