Recognising and Responding to Early Warning Signs in Public Sector Bodies: report
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has published a report to support public sector bodies to get better at recognising and responding to emerging problems.
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On 25 March 2025, the Committee published Recognising and Responding to Early Warning Signs in Public Sector Bodies.
Recent reports of public inquiries and other independent reviews have revealed common themes. These include a failure to listen to and act on concerns raised by employees and/or the public, a failure to learn lessons from past mistakes or similar incidents and a failure to identify and share emerging themes that might have alerted the organisation to a developing risk. There is often a failure of the board to have effective oversight of issues and concerns. A common characteristic of bodies responsible for a major failure is an overly defensive organisational culture.
The purpose of this report is to support public sector bodies to put in place the processes needed to recognise the early warning signs of emerging problems and to facilitate a culture where speaking up about concerns and learning from mistakes are seen as a personal duty and are valued by everyone in the organisation. Our aspiration is better outcomes for the public by mitigating the risk of harm, saving taxpayers’ money and leading to the more effective delivery of public services.
We include examples of how organisations have sought to identify and respond to the early warning signs of emerging problems and have identified 20 points for reflection which we hope will assist leaders to consider whether improvements can be made to their organisation’s processes and culture, and which employees can use to hold their leaders to account.