Background to the report

Conflicts of interest arise when an individual’s ability to apply judgement or act in a role is, or could be perceived to be, impaired or influenced by a secondary or competing interest.

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Failure to recognise or mitigate conflicts can damage the reputation of, and undermine confidence in, government operations. It is therefore important that all public bodies have appropriate systems and processes in place to manage conflicts effectively.

Cabinet Office sets the central government guidance on managing conflicts of interest. Departmental bodies (ministerial departments, non-ministerial departments and executive agencies) must have policies that comply with this guidance. Non‑departmental public bodies are encouraged to have their own policies.

Scope of the report

This report looks at the governance, systems and processes that public bodies have used to manage conflicts of interest. It aims to answer the following questions:

  • Is central government guidance effective in supporting public bodies to manage conflicts of interest?
  • Do public bodies have effective and proportionate governance, systems and controls over the management of conflicts of interest?
  • Have public bodies done enough to set a culture where conflicts are managed properly?

We asked six public bodies to walk us through how they managed conflicts in practice and supplemented this with a survey of 35 public bodies.

Video summary

Senior Audit Manager Katie Taylor summarises the report.

Conclusions

There are well-established systems in place to manage ministerial conflicts, which are dependent on the vigilance of accounting officers working in partnership with their minister.

In contrast, many public bodies lack an effective system for managing the conflicts of civil servants and other public officials. Public bodies take inconsistent approaches to who needs to make a declaration and what this should include, and compliance with policies is variable and often not recorded.

The government therefore exposes itself to the risk that unmanaged and unmitigated conflicts are on occasion influencing the objectivity of its operations. This makes it difficult for the government to be sure that it is always acting with propriety and making decisions that are in the public interest.

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Publication details

Press release

View press release (22 Nov 2024)

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