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ANTI-CORRUPTION SCORECARD A mid-term assessment of the UK Coalition Government’s record on tackling corruption
SCORECARD SUMMARY Of the 26 categories of UK life assessed by Transparency International UK: Red: 6 categories are rated as red. Amber: 14 categories are rated as amber. Green: 6 categories are rated as green WHAT IS THE SCORECARD? This Anti-Corruption Scorecard gives the UK’s Coalition Government a mid-term ‘corruption health-check’, drawing on Transparency International’s research. The assessment will be repeated in future years and used as a basis of assessing the major political parties’ commitments to an anti-corruption agenda. Our assessment looks at five broad categories. In general, we have selected areas which appeared vulnerable to corruption in our 4-volume report of 2011, ‘Corruption in the UK’. We have separated out Parliamentary Ethics and Conduct into its own category as, since 2011, scandals have continued unabated, and there seems to be reluctance by UK political parties and parliamentarians to accept there is a problem and implement appropriate solutions. We believe this is a critical area for the UK’s political leaders to address.
HOW CORRUPT IS THE UK – AND WHAT SHOULD BE DONE? Corruption Perceptions Index UK Results (2003-2013)
If you have had any contact with any one of the services listed, have you paid a bribe for any of these services?
2003
5%
2004 2005
Year
2006 2007 2008
Yes
2009
95%
2010
No
2011 2012 0
5
10 UK Position
15
20
The Corruption Perceptions Index, an annual ranking of around 170 countries according to perceived levels of corruption in the public sector, has seen the UK slip from 11th position to 17th in the last decade (the higher the ranking, the cleaner a country is perceived to be). At present, the UK is struggling to remain in the top 20, let alone achieve a place in the top 10 alongside the Scandinavian countries and New Zealand.
The Global Corruption Barometer is an opinion survey repeated every two years that asks ordinary people how frequently they have paid a bribe in the past twelve months. In 2013, for the first time, the UK results showed that 5% of people surveyed said that they had paid a bribe at least once in the past twelve months to one of eight public services, including the judiciary and the police.
Transparency International UK’s view is that: • While corruption is not endemic in the UK in the sense that it is in some other countries, the UK has some significant problems that need to be understood and acted upon. • There are clearly pockets of corruption in the UK that are not being addressed, and perhaps as disturbingly, the trend seems to have worsened in recent years. This can be seen both in reported cases of corruption and in ‘institutional integrity’ – or, in other words, the strength of the defences that key institutions have against corruption. • There is an apparent complacency within the Government and other institutions about the existence of corruption in the UK, as signified by a number of red and amber lights in our scorecard. • By contrast, the UK seems to be doing much better in the international fight against corruption, which is signified by several green lights. • Of considerable concern is that the government – presumably unintentionally – has been gradually removing some of the UK’s defences against corruption. For instance, the abolition of the Audit Commission, without replacing some of the anticorruption functions, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the level and nature of corruption risk in Local Government. • One potentially significant change is the creation of the National Crime Agency, although it is unclear at this point what institutional arrangements will be made with regard to combatting corruption.