ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the conceptualization of integrity issues and distinguishes between the different kinds of ethical problems which face the British political system. It considers the United Kingdom's main institutional response: the lynchpin of the modern integrity system, namely the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL), and the broad range of innovations in principles, codes of behaviour and ethical oversight. The chapter highlights the impact of its deliberations right across representative assemblies, the executive and civil service, and local government. The debate on ethics in British public life has many of the elements found in other advanced democracies: concern about conflict of interest, trading in influence, party finance, public procurement and post-employment of office-holders. Nevertheless, while the British debate periodically touches on the adequacy of arrangements to deal with corruption in the sense defined by hard law, criminal corruption alone does not define the debate.
