ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the theme of ‘regulatory compromise’ and the sub-themes associated with ‘accountability’, ‘managerial delegation’ and ‘regulatory failure’. Mid Staffordshire and Rotherham demonstrated how authority was wielded with little accountability when leaders failed to protect patients from neglect and incompetence or children from sexual exploitation by organised gangs of violent criminals. Managerial delegation ensured that managers could create moral distance from the consequences of directing frontline work to meet performance management tasks and the constant drive for further efficiencies created a moral hazard for all concerned. Managerial delegation sees the designers and implementers of the system escape the moral consequences of their action by their physical and administrative distance. One of the main reasons for this regulatory failure was the lack of accountability relating to the work of professionals, managers and council leaders.
