United Kingdom, Accountability - understand-culture

Statements of Responsibilities

Since March 2016, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime has applied to British financial firms. Each senior manager has a Statement of Responsibilities that says what he or she is responsible and accountable for. Firms also draw up a Responsibilities Map. Every senior manager has a Duty of Responsibility under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

In 2023, IFA Magazine reported that, according to freedom of information data, only one enforcement action had been taken under the regime since its introduction.

The Accounting Officer

Every government department has an Accounting Officer. HM Treasury’s guidance Managing Public Money describes the Accounting Officer as “the person who Parliament calls to account for stewardship of its resources.” Each Accounting Officer “takes personal responsibility” for the proper use of the money.

When the Public Accounts Committee examines spending, it normally invites the Accounting Officer to appear as a witness.

The Ministerial Code

The Ministerial Code states: “Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions” of their departments. This is the doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility.

Policy and Operations

In 1995, the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, dismissed Derek Lewis, director general of the Prison Service, after high-profile escapes by IRA prisoners. Howard held that escapes were operational matters for the agency, and that he was responsible only for policy. Lewis later called the distinction “no more than a political figleaf.”

In 1997, in a BBC Newsnight interview, Jeremy Paxman asked Howard at least twelve times whether he had threatened to overrule Lewis.

Corporate Manslaughter

Before 2008, a company could be convicted of manslaughter only if a “directing mind” of the organization was guilty first. In a large company, this was difficult to prove.

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, in force from 6 April 2008, created a new offense of corporate manslaughter that is committed by the organization itself.

Consent, Connivance or Neglect

Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 reaches past the company to the individual. When a company commits an offense under the Act with the “consent or connivance” of a director or manager, or through that person’s neglect, “he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence.”