By Gerald J. Miller, Samuel J. Yeager, W. Bartley Hildreth and Jack RabinThis article explores the way public-sector financial managers cope with ethical challenges created by undue political pressure and demands for special treatment. A nationwide survey of financial managers revealed that fiscal stress exacerbates ethical pressure for most financial managers, including chief financial officers (CFOs) and those who report to CFOs. Financial managers do not work in an ethical vacuum; they respond to supervisors who encourage ethical action and to co-workers who demonstrate high standards of personal integrity. Supervisors of CFOs who emphasize political responsiveness in employee evaluations can threaten the ethical behavior of CFOs, while timely feedback can mitigate ethical pressure. In turn, CFOs as supervisors can temper the harsh work environment in fiscally stressed times by encouraging ethical action and by giving adequate feedback to those who report to them.

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A new benchmarking service that will enable public service organisations to measure and track the performance of their partnerships and outsourced ICT is due to be launched next week by the Society of IT Management. Users of the service will be able to assess how well they are performing both individually and in comparison with similar organisations. Because benchmarking is an on-going process it will also be possible to measure the difference resulting from improvements made.The new service will be available to public sector organisations which have developed partnerships and outsourced their ICT service, which includes at least 20% of local authorities which are known to have gone down this route. Benchmarks will be based on Key Performance Indicators covering the main areas of performance such as user satisfaction, resolution of operational problems, project management and cost-efficiency.

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Councils want a new role that will allow them to take the lead in supporting prisoners after their release. During their time in prison, a significant proportion of inmates lose their house, their job and contact with their family, whilst many face associated financial problems. When the release day comes they are faced with a bewildering range of voluntary, public and private bodies that provide numerous different services. Too many former inmates simply slip through the net and back into old habits. This results in more crime, another conviction and another term of imprisonment. Re-offending not only ruins lives, but it blights communities and costs the taxpayer 11bn pounds every year.The call to re-think re-offending comes from the Local Government Association ahead of the bill to be presented in the Queen’s speech tomorrow. The LGA wants the bill to give councils a statutory duty to help those leaving prison to get back on the straight and narrow.

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