Committee on Standards in Public Life consultation

Ethics for Regulators Review

The Professional Standards Authority for the Health and Social Care welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s Ethics for Regulators Review.

Our evidence

We bring to the Committee’s attention work that it has done in this area in recent years. This includes:

• The Authority’s role in relation to the appointment of professional regulators’ chairs and council members
• Fit and Proper? Governance in the public interest (March 2013) in which we set out our reflections on governance drawing on our experience of annual reviews of the regulators’ performance, our reports on specific areas of concern, our experience of developing policy in the sector, and our international experience
• Standards for members of NHS boards and Clinical Commissioning Group governing bodies in England (November 2012 & November 2013) advice to the Secretary of State, and associated standards
• Board size and effectiveness (June 2011) in which we advised the Department of Health on the potential benefits of moving to smaller councils as a way of delivering more board like and effective governance
• Details of our own accountability arrangements with the Health Select Committee.

Overarching themes

• A focus on values as well as technical competence
• A focus on personal responsibility as the meaning of accountability
• The importance of including in governance and accountability arrangements a diversity of views and perspectives