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

This paper focuses on the nature of 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 National Integrity System resembles a patchwork quilt of poorly defined institutional roles, questionable independence, and contested notions of how best to disseminate and uphold ethical practice. The paper traces how a relatively enduring characteristic known as 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 decentralise public service delivery sit in tension with, and feed into, piecemeal attempts to centralise and codify integrity management. This dynamic is presented in terms of the tension between a compliance-based and a values-based approach to integrity management. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part traces the evolution of the British public service ethos, tracing continuities and changes, in order to situate integrity management in both its institutional and structural context. The second part engages with 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 the broader literature surrounding National Integrity Systems and New Public Management. In doing so the paper reflects on ways we can understand the concept and application of integrity management within and beyond the UK experience

Combating corruption in the twenty-first century: new approaches

Despite the focus placed on combating corruption over the last quarter-century, practical results have been disappointing. A small number of "success" stories cannot mask the fact that corruption continues to blight the lives of millions of citizens. This essay argues that part of the reason for the broad failure of anticorruption policies is that we have not specified clearly enough what we are seeking to address, and have paid insufficient attention to changes in how and where different forms of corruption operate in practice. Rather than sticking to unrealistic aspirations to "defeat" corruption, this essay argues that we should pay more attention to the positive promotion of integrity, supported by a better understanding of the drivers of individual behavior, particularly how these are more complex than suggested by the incentives-based literature. The final section of the essay outlines some practical measures we can take, underlining the need to focus reform efforts at both supra- and subnational levels in order to help move beyond what has become a sterile conversation about corruption

THE EFFECT OF PACE ON STRIDE CHARACTERISTICS AND VARIABILITY IN SPRINT RUNNING

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of sprint running pace on stride characteristics and their associated variability. Stride characteristics were determined for four experienced male track athletes during sprint running trials at three specified paces. The influence of pace on the stride length and frequency were investigated along with the within subject coefficient of variation for the step frequency / length ratio and the stride velocity. Stride length and stride frequency were shown to influence velocity the greatest at the slowest and fastest paces respectively. Variability of the stride frequency / length ratio was shown to increase with pace whereas the variability of the stride velocity was shown to decrease with pace. Variability within the stride characteristics suggests athletes adopt a flexible control strategy which can adapt to potential perturbations

The Cochrane Collaboration: institutional analysis of a knowledge commons

Cochrane is an international network that produces and updates new knowledge through systematic reviews for the health sector. Knowledge is a shared resource, and can be viewed as a commons. As Cochrane has been in existence for 25 years, we used Elinor Ostrom's theory of the commons and Institutional Analysis and Development Framework to appraise the organisation. Our aim was to provide insight into one particular knowledge commons, and to reflect on how this analysis may help Cochrane and its funders improve their strategy and development. An assessment of Cochrane product showed extensive production of systematic reviews, although assuring consistent quality of these reviews is an enduring challenge; there is some restriction of access to the reviews, open access is not yet implemented; and, while permanence of the record is an emerging problem, it has not yet been widely discussed. The assessment of the process showed that the resource, community, and rules-in-use are complex, vary between different groups within Cochrane, and are not well understood. Many of the rules have been informal, and the underlying ethos of volunteerism where reviews get done are important features and constraints to the organisation. Like all collective efforts, Cochrane is subject to collective action problems, particularly free-riding and variable commitment, and the under-production of public goods and internal processes, such as surveillance of product quality and procedures for transparent resolution of conflicts

Presence of a pre-hospital enhanced care team reduces on scene time and improves triage compliance for stab trauma

© The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: A reduction in pre-hospital scene time for patients with penetrating trauma is associated with reduced mortality, when combined with appropriate hospital triage. This study investigated the relationship between presence of pre-hospital enhanced care teams (ECT) (Critical Care Paramedics (CCPS) or Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS)), on the scene time and triage compliance, of penetrating trauma patients in a UK ambulance service. The primary outcome was whether scene time reduces when an ECT is present. A secondary outcome was whether the presence of an ECT improved compliance with the trust's Major Trauma Decision Tree (MTDT). Methods: All suspected penetrating trauma incidents involving a patient's torso were identified from the Trust's computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system between 31st March 2017 and 1st April 2018. Only patients who sustained central penetrating trauma were included. Any incidents involving firearms were excluded due to the prolonged times that can be involved when waiting for specialist police units. Data relevant to scene time for each eligible incident were retrieved, along with the presence or absence of an ECT. The results were analysed to identify trends in the scene times and compliance with the MTDT. Results: One hundred seventy-one patients met the inclusion criteria, with 165 having complete data. The presence of an ECT improved the median on-scene time in central stabbing by 38% (29m50s vs. 19m0s, p = 0.03). The compliance with the trust's MTDT increased dramatically when an ECT is present (81% vs. 37%, odds ratio 7.59, 95% CI, 3.70-15.37, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: The presence of an ECT at a central stabbing incident significantly improved the scene time and triage compliance with a MTDT. Ambulance services should consider routine activation of ECTs to such incidents, with subsequent service evaluation to monitor patient outcomes. Ambulance services should continue to strive to reduce scene times in the context of central penetrating trauma.Peer reviewe

Rethinking corruption: hocus-pocus, locus and focus

Although there has been a significant increase in research on the phenomenon of corruption over the last quarter-century, there is little evidence that this has resulted in effective policy interventions, nor in any significant reduction in its scope and extent. This article argues that three main reasons account for this failure to develop effective anti-corruption measures. First, the dominance of economistic analyses of the role of incentives in decision-making has given rise to proposed institutional fixes that are too abstracted from reality to gain purchase. That dominance was partly prompted by a misplaced assumption that market-based liberal democracies would become the modal regime type following the collapse of communism. Second, an emphasis on the nation state as the primary unit of analysis has not kept pace with significant changes in how some forms of corruption operate in practice, nor with the changing nature of states themselves. Third, different types of corruption are insufficiently disaggregated according not just to kind and form, but also to the locations in which they occur (sectoral, organisational, geographical), the actors involved, and the dependencies that enable them. This reflects an overuse of the term ‘corruption’ in both academic literature and policy recommendations; insufficient attention is paid to what exactly is being addressed and ultimately, the notion of corruption, without adjectives, is a poor guide both to analysis and to policy prescription

“Close but no cigar”: the measurement of corruption

The financial cost of corruption has recently been estimated at more than 5 per cent of global GDP. Yet, despite the widespread agreement that corruption is one of the most pressing policy challenges facing world leaders, it remains as widespread today, possibly even more so, as it was when concerted international attention began being devoted to the issue following the end of the Cold War. In reality, we still have a relatively weak understanding of how best to measure corruption and how to develop effective guides to action from such measurement. This paper provides a detailed review of existing approaches to measuring corruption, focusing in particular on perception-based and non- perceptual approaches. We highlight a gap between the conceptualisation of corruption and its measurement, and argue that there is a tension between the demands of policy-makers and anti-corruption activists on the one hand, and the motivations of academic researchers on the other. The search for actionable answers on the part of the former sits uncomfortably with the latter’s focus on the inherent complexity of corruption

Introduction : towards a better understanding of corruption and anti-corruption

Despite widespread interest in corruption and how to root it out, the problem continues to grow. Anti-corruption strategies and methods have proved ineffective in achieving lasting reductions in corruption. Anti-corruption academic research has not been free of criticism, and part of the problem is its emphasis on macro-level analysis. The case studies in corruption and anti-corruption in this symposium focus on specific areas that have received surprisingly little attention in the literature: the effectiveness of political finance supervisory bodies; the impact of European Union post-conditionality on anti-corruption efforts; and the increased use of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in shaping the way that corruption is conceptualised and combated on a global scale. Together, the articles in this symposium offer some novel insights and approaches to the issue of how best to understand and assess different ways of addressing corruption in specific sectors which have received insufficient attention in the literature to date

Public Integrity: from anti-corruption rhetoric to substantive moral ideal

Recently, policy actors have posited the promotion of public integrity as a new response to corruption in government and the decline in trust in public institutions. However, often, this use of the term «public integrity» amounts to little more than rhetoric. Upon closer inspection, for many of those advocating its adoption, «public integrity» just means the absence of corruption, or whatever policy instruments will best prevent corruption. Thus, the putative new «public integrity agenda» is not new at all, but rather a rhetorical rebranding of the longer-standing anticorruption agenda. In this paper, we argue that such rhetorical use of the term «public integrity» is not harmless, but in fact risks damage to the overall cause of good governance and in particular the prospects of a genuinely novel, standalone, substantive «public integrity» agenda