Local government and procurement among focus areas for new UK anti-corruption strategy

In a section on “Tackling UK vulnerabilities”, one of three pillars of the Strategy, the Government warns that the public sector is vulnerable to exploitation by corrupt actors given its substantial scale and reach in the UK.

It added that 86% of the public are concerned about the possibility of corruption in at least one category of public officials, with particularly high concern for police officers, prison officers, and local government employees.

The Strategy says: “The overwhelming majority of UK public sector officials work in the public interest. However, corrupt actors can exploit vulnerabilities in areas like border control, immigration detention, law enforcement, and prisons. This can damage the integrity of the institutions, hurt individuals and benefit organised criminals, terrorists, and foreign states.

“Decisions around how public money is spent, or services are delivered, are also vulnerable to corrupt individuals. If public officials are seen to act corruptly, this can lead to a loss of public trust in local and national institutions…. We want to take further action to strengthen our resilience to corruption in the public sector.”

In relation to local government, the Strategy has as an ambition the identification and addressing of corruption risks.

It says: “Local government officers and councillors are already expected to meet standards for integrity, accountability, and conduct in public office to prevent misconduct and reduce the risk of corruption. While cases are rare, any instance of corruption can erode public trust.

“Inconsistent management of conflicts of interest, gifts, and business appointments, combined with the erosion of local authority audits, can create an environment that increases the risk of corruption.

“The UK is committed to upholding strong integrity standards and oversight in both national and local government. This strategy presents an opportunity to reaffirm these commitments and to prioritise the effective mitigation of local corruption risks in the UK’s future anti-corruption response.”

The Strategy says that the Government will over the next five years design and implement activities over the next five years to meet this ambition of addressing corruption risks.

Initial priority commitments for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government include establishing a new statutory and independent Local Audit Office in England, and subject to separate agreement, introducing in England a new mandatory Code of Conduct for elected local government officials through legislation, “including robust sanctions for breaches”, and exploring additional powers to strengthen the Code to uphold integrity standards in local government.

There will also be, subject to separate agreement, consideration of establishing independent oversight for England on local government standards to provide assurance of appeals processes.

The Strategy earlier hailed the establishment of the new Ethics and Integrity Commission to strengthen probity in public life, by “strengthening and reforming the Committee on Standards in Public Life”.

In relation to mitigating and addressing corruption risks in public sector procurement, the Strategy says that measures in the Procurement Act 2023 will raise procurement standards by taking tougher action on fraud and corruption.

The Government has also initially agreed the following commitments to:

1. monitor participation rates of procurement training and evaluate the effectiveness of learning and development products (a priority commitment for the Cabinet Office)
2. ensure compliance of the transparency regime under the Procurement Act 2023 and monitor data quality
3. improve access to, and use of, procurement data for public reporting, and work with government stakeholders to shape transparency analytics and, if appropriate, make available in the public domain
4. plan to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the debarment regime, which allows ministers to list suppliers whose past conduct or circumstances disqualify them from public procurement
5. monitor the contracting authority landscape through referrals and internal reports to the Procurement Review Unit, allowing for oversight and, where appropriate, recommending actions to improve compliance, including anti-corruption measures, with the Procurement Act
6. analyse the available commercial data held on the central digital platform to generate insights and intelligence on market performance, enabling assessment of potential corruption risks.

Turning to capacity and knowledge, the Strategy says that the UK public sector’s strongest defence against corruption and fraud lies in the “integrity and conduct” of its public bodies and officials.

The Government warns that the uptake of fraud and corruption training among civil servants is low.

It says: “This aligns with findings from the National Audit Office, which reports that most public bodies lack a clear understanding of the fraud and corruption risks they face, cannot demonstrate appropriate resourcing of counter fraud and corruption and, outside of tax and welfare, have limited counter fraud capability.”

The Government has therefore committed to delivering an updated programme of corruption and fraud e-learning to all national and local public sector officials at risk to fraudulent or corrupt practice, and will make it mandatory for all civil servants.

It will also seek to build awareness of the risks of fraud and corruption within national government by delivering an internal communications campaign for all civil servants, and build an effective culture to tackle corruption, bribery and fraud within the public sector through development of the Counter Fraud Leadership Development Programme, developing the Fraud Control Level 4 Apprenticeship and a separate fraud control qualification.

The Government will meanwhile enhance public bodies’ ability to manage fraud and corruption risks by increasing high-quality impact and risk assessments, developing risk assessment tools, and training more qualified fraud risk assessors.

The two other pillars of the Strategy cover tackling corrupt actors and building global resilience.

Announcing the new Strategy, Security Minister Dan Jarvis said: “Corruption threatens our national security, undermines legitimate business and steals money from working people’s pockets.   

“Our landmark strategy will take on the rogue actors and insiders who often exploit their positions of power and manipulate the public purse for personal gain.  

“We will ensure the UK is a world leader in the fight against corruption, by ramping up policing efforts and introducing stronger safeguards to stop criminals infiltrating our institutions.”

Lottie Winson