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This article will be of value to those working across the National Health Service (NHS) and particularly to those engaged in counter fraud activities across the public sector. As well as having national value, this article will be of international relevance as it speaks to the responsible guardianship of public funds. This article evidences the ways in which counter fraud services across the NHS in England are disjointed and some of the causes for such disjointedness. Official reports estimate that at least £1.2 billion, approximately 1% of the NHS budget, is annually lost to fraud. At a time when the NHS is facing unprecedented demand on its resources due to austerity policies, Brexit and the global pandemic, and with no clear indication of significant additional investment, any loss of NHS funds could have significant impact on patient care and so a better understanding of counter fraud responses in the NHS is potentially pivotal to future responsible handling of public money. This article presents first-hand experience of those delivering counter fraud services, demonstrating the extent of disjointedness in responses to fraud against the National Health Service (NHS). This sample study of local counter fraud specialists working across England, indicates that the current counter fraud landscape creates the structure and conditions for reduced 'effectiveness' of counter fraud provisions, including great variability across regions and across types of fraud. This article evidences the need for future research to better understand and strengthen counter fraud provision across the NHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleaze attracted attention in 2004 but the number of politicians subject to media stories and parliamentary inquiries was small and did not figure much in the headlines until the allegations leading to the resignation of David Blunkett at the end of the year. The Committee on Standards in Public Life suggested that the few stories involving sex and money, did not imprint themselves on the public minds, and may have resulted in decline in cases or greater tolerance.

A different perspective on the issue of donor coordination is adopted, specifically considering the potential for the integration of activities of agencies or institutions from within one specific donor country involved in work overseas in the anti-corruption field. The activities of one transnational agency located in UK, at the UK's development agency are observed, both as a single donor and as a part of the partnership with the order development agencies, and at two other UK agencies.

This article complements one written in 2001 for Crime, Law and Social Change that underlined the importance of records and record-keeping in developing countries in combating corruption and promoting participation. This article addresses the same theme as the basis on which two developments intended to promote more efficient and effective anti-corruption funding could be assessed. These concern: the value of donors coordinating and cooperating over donor funding (by institution and country) and the identification of particular expertise of specific donors to diversify the range of complementary strengths (the comparative advantage approach). To do that, effective evaluation of past projects is necessary--and is in itself dependant on the quality, accessibility and usability of the records held. The article uses the case-study of corruption prevention projects funded between 1995-1999 by the European Union (1) to consider the importance of records and record-keeping to the evaluation process and thus to any assessment and development of coordinated funding and the comparative advantage approach.

This paper takes as its main themes the impact of public choice theory and the impact of Thatcherism and the rise of public management on the delivery of public services. These themes have created, according to a Chief Executive of a Regional Health Authority, the need 'to learn new disciplines of commercial relationships and competitive tendering and so on, and at the same time remember the very important traditional public service values; and that is not an easy combination'. Whether the relationship with business has been a temporary affair, a marriage of convenience or a marriage until death do us part, business and business practices have had significant implications for the dominant morality now prevailing in the delivery of public services.

An analysis of Labor Party public appointment practices is presented, focusing on Prime Minister Tony Blair. Topics include 'cronyism', and media coverage of political appointments.

This article provides a review of books and articles on political corruption as of 1999. Areas examined include overviews, country studies, development contexts, and programs for control.

Britain's Labor Government, elected in 1997, needs to decide how to best use public entrepreneurialism to deliver public services better. Standards remain to be developed for misconduct or mismanagement, and for holding public organizations accountable. Private affluence and public squalor can, if uncontrolled, overcome the most ambitious social programs. The Labor government cannot afford to return to the ideological themes of the 1970s.

NEIL HAMILTON was elected Conservative MP for Tatton in Cheshire in 1983. With a reputation as an uncompromising Thatcherite, enhanced by a successful libel case against the BBC,[1] he used [...]

The Scott report shows the British government did not behave ethically in either the Matrix Churchill trial or in subsequent events. The government chose to avoid rigorously applying export license guidelines to weapons parts shipped to Iraq, and there were several attempts to minimize the political damage once the trial began. International affairs should be guided by ethical considerations.

In its introduction, the Nolan Committee Report(1) talked of the common threads - codes of conduct, independent scrutiny, and guidance and education - that would be necessary to underpin those [...]