The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Ethics and integrity are at the heart of the Government’s approach to public service.
The seven principles of public life are fundamental to everything we do as we return Britain to the service of working people.
The Government have already acted to drive up standards in government. The Prime Minister has published a new, stronger ministerial code. Updated terms of reference ensure the independent adviser on ministerial standards no longer requires the Prime Minister’s consent to initiate an investigation. A new register of Ministers’ gifts and hospitality is now published monthly, aligning more closely with the parliamentary system and providing greater transparency.
Since coming to office, the Government have been giving careful consideration to ensuring the right structures and arrangements are in place for upholding integrity in public life. Today, the Government are announcing a series of further reforms to our ethics and integrity bodies to strengthen standards across the public sector—standards the public rightly expect, and deserve.
Ethics and integrity commission
The Government will be establishing an ethics and integrity commission to strengthen probity in public life, delivering on a key manifesto commitment. Our new commission will sit at the heart of our standards system. It will promote the seven principles of public life; support public bodies developing codes of conduct; enable the sharing of best practice across the public sector, and report to Government on specific areas in need of improvement.
The commission will be established by strengthening and reforming the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The commission will be granted a stronger mandate and an expanded role to promote, oversee and report on the seven principles of public life. This expanded role will include a new obligation to report annually to the Prime Minister on the overall health of our standards system, and a new function of regular engagement with public sector bodies to assist them in the development of clear codes of conduct with effective oversight arrangements. The commission will also play a leadership role in convening the ethics and standards bodies in central Government and Parliament to drive forward the agenda and to identify and address areas of common concern. These new functions will build on the existing role of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards through broad inquiries into topical subjects. The commission will continue to conduct such inquiries, and the Government are also providing a new commitment to respond to all ethics and integrity commission reports in a reasonable timeframe.
This authoritative body and its new mandate will drive up ethical standards across the public sector and take a leading role in helping to put ethics and integrity at the heart of every public sector organisation. The Cabinet Office will work closely with CSPL to finalise its transition into the ethics and integrity commission and publish new terms of reference.
Ministerial severance payments
As part of our mission to restore trust in politics, the Government are also announcing changes to the arrangements by which Ministers receive severance payments. Ministers are currently automatically entitled to a severance payment equivalent to three months’ salary when they leave office for any reason, after any period of time in office. Following a review of ministerial severance pay announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in July 2024, the Prime Minister is introducing reforms to ensure severance payments are proportionate and fair.
Under the changes, a new minimum service requirement will be introduced, with Ministers expected to forgo their severance payment if they serve in office for less than six months. If Ministers leave office and are subsequently reappointed to another paid ministerial office within three months, they will be expected to forgo their salary until three months has passed since they left office, in order to avoid Ministers being paid a salary while still in receipt of severance pay.
The ministerial code sets out the high standards expected of all who serve in Government—a Government of service, not entitlement. In the future, if Ministers leave office following a serious breach of the ministerial code, they will be expected to forgo their severance payment. Similarly, if a former Minister is found to have seriously breached the business appointment rules in the period following their departure from office, they will be expected to repay their severance payment.
The business appointment rules
The Government have also been giving careful consideration to the current arrangements by which the business appointment rules are administered. The business appointments system plays an important role in protecting the integrity of Government, ensuring that those who serve in a privileged position within Government do not go on to improperly profit personally from that experience and that their future employers do not gain an unfair advantage through privileged access to Government. As part of this, the provision of authoritative, independent advice to former Ministers and officials remains a particularly important safeguard, but the Government recognise the need to build confidence in this system.
Alongside this work, the Government have been carrying out a comprehensive review of all arm’s length bodies, established with the premise that such bodies will be closed, merged or have their functions brought back into Departments unless their separate existence can be strongly justified.
As a result of these considerations, the Government have decided to close the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and to transfer its function to provide independent advice on the application of the business appointment rules in respect of the most senior civil servants and special advisers to the Civil Service Commission. The commission’s current responsibility for providing independent regulation of fair and open recruitment into the civil service means that it is well suited also to overseeing the arrangements by which departures and post-Government roles for the most senior civil servants are managed under the BARs. Just as the proper application of the civil service recruitment principles helps to protect the integrity of, and trust in, the civil service, so too must the proper application of the business appointment rules at the end of civil servants’ careers in Government. This end-to-end oversight by the commission will also enable talented individuals thinking of a career in the civil service to be clear on the restrictions that may apply at the end of their role. I have asked the First Civil Service Commissioner to report to me, having taken on this function, on any further strengthening of the business appointment rules the commission may recommend to ensure proper standards are applied as people leave the civil service.
ACOBA’s function to provide independent advice in respect of former Ministers will be transferred to the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, who already provides independent advice to the Prime Minister on adherence to the ministerial code and to individual Ministers on the appropriate management of their private interests while in office.
The structural change will be accompanied by wider reforms to strengthen and streamline the system and enhance compliance. As set out above, in the event of a serious breach of the business appointment rules, Ministers will in future be asked to repay any severance payment they have received. To improve the consistency of the application of the rules in Departments, the Civil Service Commission, which already audits Departments for compliance with the civil service recruitment principles, will in the future undertake regular audits of departmental decisions on business appointment applications for grades below the level currently administered by ACOBA. This enhanced sanction and oversight will be underpinned by a more efficient and responsive system, focused on ensuring applicants understand their obligations under the rules.
Together, these changes will give us tougher rules, fewer bodies and clearer lines of accountability. Further information on the ethics and integrity commission and the new business appointment rules process will be published when they become operational on 13 October 2025.
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