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UK government fails corporate responsibility test

According to the Ethical Corporation the UK government’s commitment to corporate responsibility has been downgraded somewhat.

The DTI has a minister whose portfolio includes corporate responsibility. She is now supported by just one half time official. Impressive, isn’t it? This makes something of a mockery of their web site which claims:

Welcome to the Government’s website on CSR. We have an ambitious vision for UK businesses to consider the economic, social and environmental impacts of their activities, wherever they operate in the world. This website connects you to information about what we are doing to help make that vision a reality.

Sorry, but I don’t see it happening. Nor do I think the CSR brief can be covered by saying the Foreign Office has people responsible for the Extractive Industries Transport Initiative, Kimberley Process and the Voluntary Principles. They’re all valuable. But they’re a tiny part of CSR.

Put simply, the rhetoric is failing on this one. The government has to put its cash where its mouth and its web pages are or action will not happen.

Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Sunday, May 13, 2007, at 10:00 pm by Tax Research LLP. Filed in CSR, Ethics.

2 Comments

  1. A Marshall wrote:

    :?: It would be interesting to see how other countries fair in the area of social responsibilty. Scandinavian ones seem to have the lowest incidents of corruption and probably score higher than others on minimising the economic, social and environmental impacts of their activities. It is probably no co-incidence that they have had long periods of social democratic governance and a strong sense of civic duty, one element of which is paying tax.

    We clearly need to have an intelligent and informed debate about the best way to measure corporate responsibility in the UK and how best to get companies to think and act responsibly. Our government then will probably have to bring in some legislative measures to get it to work.

    Posted on 14-May-07 at 2:01 am | Permalink
  2. Tax Research LLP wrote:

    The UK government did, of course, duck this recently. Gordon Brown was to blame.

    Posted on 14-May-07 at 9:44 am | Permalink

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