{"id":75,"date":"2024-10-21T06:50:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T05:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/?p=75"},"modified":"2024-10-23T09:52:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T08:52:44","slug":"ethics-capabilities-in-civil-service-reflections-from-a-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/2024\/10\/21\/ethics-capabilities-in-civil-service-reflections-from-a-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics capabilities in civil service: reflections from a roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This #GlobalEthicsDay, we\u2019ve been reflecting at the ESRC “Ethics and Expertise” policy roundtable with UK experts on how science, policy and ethics intersect.  <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We wanted to find out more about whether \u2018ethics expertise\u2019 and \u2018ethics training\u2019 are needed or wanted as part of the professional capabilities of civil servants, what kinds of forms this might take, and what missteps to avoid along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s currently a gap in research on how ethics is used in policy-making processes, and it is sometimes dismissed as a tick-box exercise.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think that embedding ethics could potentially help civil servants to feel more confident in decision-making, advice and analysing data and evidence, especially where there are clear public concerns, trade-offs and implicit values at play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethics is one of several thinking and reasoning approaches which improve foresight, framing of policy problems, assessing evidence and evaluating policies, all of which are highly sought policy skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key messages from our expert advisors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Civil servants are time-pressed<\/strong> and deal every day with complex problems, diverse sources of knowledge and participate in a complicated advisory landscape, so we need to be clear how thinking about ethics is going to help them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. The language of \u2018ethics\u2019 might be off-putting<\/strong>, as most people associate this with professional standards, codes of conduct and personal integrity, or see this as the responsibility of ministers and politicians, so we need to define ethics and show how it contributes to good governance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. There is value in supporting civil servants to develop ethical literacy or capabilities <\/strong>\u2013 this could include making assumptions more explicit, understanding how values intersect with diverse forms of evidence at every stage (from producing, evaluating, using evidence), knowing how and when to consult with ethics experts, navigate emotive issues and navigate sometimes polarised public opinion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Academic experts need to work with humility in advising policy makers<\/strong>, understanding the remit, scope and limitations of their advice, and their own value assumptions and integrity in presenting evidence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. The best routes to embedding ethics in UK policy making are to work with established learning and development schemes<\/strong>, bring in skilled facilitators, tailor learning to career stage, co-design processes, make learning relevant, intuitive, timely, action-oriented and experiential.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This #GlobalEthicsDay, we\u2019ve been reflecting at the ESRC “Ethics and Expertise” policy roundtable with UK experts on how science, policy and ethics intersect.   We wanted to find out more about whether \u2018ethics expertise\u2019 and \u2018ethics training\u2019 are needed or wanted as part of the professional capabilities of civil servants, what kinds of forms this might … Continue reading “Ethics capabilities in civil service: reflections from a roundtable”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[24,2,28,5,6,3,18,22,8],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-civil-service","tag-ethics","tag-events","tag-policy","tag-policy-advice","tag-policymaking","tag-public-sector","tag-science","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/ethics-expertise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}