Our Research

IPEG has been commissioned by the Standards Board for England to conduct research on how an ethical environment can be supported in the various local authorities with which it works. The research is led by Professor Gerry Stoker and the main researcher is Dr Stephen Greasley, with Dr Francesca Gains being the third member of the team.

How You Can Help

We want to hear from you if you have examples of your standards committee or your authority effectively addressing ethical issues. You can let us know about your activites by filling in the online survey or by contacting the project's Research Associate, Dr Stephen Greasley, at Stephen.Greasley@manchester.ac.uk, or to:

IPEG, Room 3.49 Williamson Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Rd
Manchester
M13 9PL
T tel: 0161 275 0797, fax: 0161 275 0793.

If you have specific concerns about misconduct by individual members or about conduct in particular authorities, please contact the Standards Board for England.

Members of the team are also involved in a separate research project funded by the ODPM - Evaluating Local Governance (ELG). Although the projects cover some similar areas the ELG research does not focus specifically on ethical environments and will not produce effective practice reports.

What you will find on this site over the period of the project

• A short online survey for members of local standards committees and officers who support them
  
• Links to relevant websites, including work on public sector ethics carried out by the Graham Committee, OECD, research and NGO websites
  

Please note: we are independent researchers commissioned by the Standards Board for England to complete this project. The views expressed on this website are not necessarily those of the Standards Board for England.

Background to the Research

The tenth report by the Graham Committee on Standards in Public Life placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of emedding the principles of public life in public organisations. This project looks at how this goal might be achieved. There are a number of factors that we will be investigating, including: mediation; communication and training; the development of protocols; the role of standards committees; the importance of leadership; and, the role of ethics in corporate governance.

What the research involves:

• A literature review convering public sector ethics, corporate governance and the changing environment facing local authorities
  
• A desk based review of approaches to ethics in other liberal democracies and in the business and financial sectors
  
• Searching for, and collating examples of, effective practice in the work of standards committees and other activites related to ethics
  
• Case studies in a number of authorities looking at mechanisms for supporting ethical environments and potential challenges to ethical conduct, for example, contracting out, neighbourhood governance & 'dual-hatted' roles