Clean but compromised: Corruption in the UK public administration

Abstract

Public administration in the United Kingdom has
long enjoyed a reputation for being both impartial and corruption-free. However,  from the outset it has sought to manage a tension between efficiency and public accountability; these twin demands have constituted the driving forces of reform initiatives to this day. This paper assesses a system that, whilst increasingly protected by strong anti-corruption compliance mechanisms, faces risks of politicisation, and also integrity and oversight challenges as the lines between public and private become increasingly blurred. These developments threaten the public administration’s much-vaunted ‘impartiality’ and erode its protective features, with potentially negative consequences for controlling corruption.

Keywords: public administration, UK, corruption, impartiality.