That is something we should be ashamed of. There are very many thoroughly honest and ethical British businesses, but I hope the law enforcement agencies will make an example of any company they find using bribery and other corrupt practices.
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And companies that do this are in for a shock when they are caught, because they will be liable to an unlimited fine under the Bribery Act 2010 unless they can show that the board of directors had done everything possible through good policies, procedures and training to ensure it should not have happened.
I really wonder how many businesses are just ignoring the threat this poses – if the police arrive at your premises one morning and take away your computers, it is way too late to start thinking about what you should have done to change your business model. And even if you are already running an honest business, you need to protect yourselves from the act of a rogue member of staff, just as you would from a burglar.
But although there are obviously dishonest and unethical people in business, I believe that poor procurement systems and poor contract management in construction are just as much to blame, especially at the local level.
If there is an opportunity to be dishonest, some people will be tempted to take it, so why are we not training procurement officials better, and putting in place transparent systems that will reduce the chance of people finding the space to be corrupt? The government should be setting standards in this area and ensuring that they are met, but as far as I know they are doing nothing.
To be charitable, if government ministers think about corruption at all, they probably think it is simply a law and order issue – but isn’t it far better to prevent crime than to have to investigate and prosecute it?
The then home secretary, Jack Straw told me when the Bribery Act was still under discussion that he didn’t necessarily want anyone to be prosecuted under it – he wanted to change behaviours. I liked that and I still do, but unless action is taken to educate everyone involved, behaviour is not going to change and this problem is not going to go away.
But for me there is another and completely different angle to all this. The CIOB report demonstrates just how misplaced is the casual British arrogance about how much better we supposedly are than everyone else in the world. We are simply not better. We have good characteristics and bad ones, like any nation, and we can learn a lot from people and countries around the globe.
It is this myth of superiority which leads us to believe that the European Court of Human Rights is the work of Satan, and that immigrants are only coming here to steal our jobs and defraud our benefits system. In fact, British business needs immigration to bring in the skills we need to fuel the economic recovery… But don’t get me started.
Graham Hand is coordinator of the UK Anti-Corruption Forum, an industry-led initiative to work against corruption in British business. He is also a director of GSH Consulting, specialising in anti-corruption systems [email protected]
