“The next public-sector scandal may create two defendants: the official who acted improperly and the organisation that allowed, concealed or defended it.”
Fraud against the public sector is not merely a financial control issue. For decades, public sector accountability has largely operated through a combination of governance, employment procedures, audit, regulatory scrutiny, judicial review, disciplinary action and, in the most serious cases, criminal offences applying to individual office-holders.
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill signals a potentially significant shift.
If enacted substantially in its current form, it would create new statutory duties of candour and assistance, impose ethical-conduct obligations on public authorities, create a criminal offence of seriously improperly misleading the public and replace the common law offence of misconduct in public office with new statutory offences.
Importantly, some of these provisions are directed not simply at individual officials. They expressly contemplate criminal liability for public authorities themselves.
For boards, chief executives, accounting officers, monitoring officers, governance leaders and counter-fraud professionals, the question is therefore becoming broader: could the same course of conduct expose both the individual public official and the public body itself to criminal liability? In some circumstances, under the Bill as presently drafted, the answer could be yes.
A Bill moving closer to becoming law
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, often referred to as the ‘Hillsborough Law’, has already completed its passage through the House of Commons. It received its first reading in the House of Lords on 16 July 2026 and its second reading on 1 September 2026. Lords Committee stage is scheduled to begin on 12 October 2026.
The Bill remains subject to parliamentary scrutiny and amendment. However, public bodies should not wait until Royal Assent before considering its implications. Its current provisions reveal the direction of travel clearly: greater personal accountability, greater organisational responsibility and significantly higher expectations around candour, ethical conduct and transparency.
The purpose of the Bill is unusually explicit
The Bill states that its purpose is to ensure that public authorities and public officials perform their functions with:
- candour
- transparency
- frankness
- regard to the public interest
It would do this through a combination of statutory duties, ethical standards and criminal offences. The Bill expressly describes itself as imposing criminal liability on public authorities and public officials in specified circumstances.
For many public bodies, ethical obligations have traditionally been viewed principally through the lens of:
- codes of conduct
- employment procedures
- professional regulation
- public-law duties
- internal audit
- standards committees
- reputational risk
The Bill potentially moves elements of this framework into criminal law.
The first major change: a statutory duty of candour and assistance
The Bill would impose a duty of candour and assistance in relation to inquiries and investigations. The duty is designed to require public authorities and public officials to provide relevant information proactively and assist those seeking to establish what happened.
This is significantly different from an organisational mindset based merely on answering questions that have been asked. The expectation is one of positive assistance.
The House of Commons Library describes this as an ‘always-on’ duty in the relevant inquiry or investigation context, requiring authorities and officials to notify investigators where their acts or information may be relevant and to correct errors or omissions.
That creates obvious consequences for:
- investigations
- inquests
- public inquiries
- serious incident reviews
- document retention
- disclosure
- executive briefings
- record keeping
- legal and governance strategy
Failure to comply could become a criminal offence
Under clause 5 of the current Bill, a person commits an offence where they fail to comply with the duty of candour and assistance and intend that the failure will impede an inquiry or investigation, or, for specified obligations, are reckless as to whether it will do so.
On indictment, the offence carries a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a fine, or both. Because the concept of ‘person’ can include the public authority itself within the statutory scheme, this is not purely an individual risk. The public body may itself potentially be prosecuted.
The second major change: misleading the public
The Bill also contains a new offence of misleading the public. As currently drafted, a public authority or public official commits the offence where, acting in that capacity, they intend to mislead the public, or are reckless as to whether their act will do so; they know, or ought to know, that the act is seriously improper; and the further statutory conditions are satisfied.
Those conditions include significant or repeated dishonesty through falsehood, concealment, obfuscation or similar conduct on matters of significant public concern, actual or potential harm, and a significant departure from what is expected in the proper exercise of public functions.
Corporate or organisational liability becomes real
The Bill therefore goes beyond punishing an individual official who personally misbehaves. A public authority itself may potentially face criminal proceedings under the duty of candour offence or the misleading the public offence.
For incorporated public bodies, this can resemble conventional corporate criminal liability. For statutory and unincorporated public authorities, the legal form is different, but the practical consequence may still involve the authority being prosecuted in its own name and a fine being met from the body’s funds. The Bill’s Schedule 3 expressly deals with offences committed by bodies and unincorporated bodies.
The question is no longer only:
“Has one of our officials committed an offence?”
It may also become:
“Has the organisation itself committed an offence through the way it responded?”
The third layer: senior officers may also become personally liable
Schedule 3 provides that where a body commits the offence of failing to comply with the duty of candour or misleading the public with the consent or connivance of a relevant senior person, that individual may also commit the offence.
For a body corporate, relevant persons include:
- directors
- managers
- secretaries
- similar officers
This is important because it creates the possibility of parallel proceedings: the public body may be criminally liable, whilst the senior individual who consented to or connived in that conduct may also be personally liable. That is a materially different accountability environment.
What might “consent or connivance” look like in practice?
The precise meaning would ultimately depend on facts and case law. But from a governance perspective, organisations should consider scenarios such as a senior executive who:
- knows that material information is being withheld from an inquiry
- agrees that documents should not be disclosed
- supports an intentionally misleading organisational account
- approves language intended to obscure what actually happened
- knowingly permits incomplete information to remain uncorrected
- discourages staff from providing relevant evidence
- permits records to be destroyed
- directs an investigation away from senior management
- suppresses adverse findings
- accepts a strategy designed to protect the organisation rather than assist an inquiry in establishing the truth
Those scenarios become considerably more serious if the legislation is enacted substantially in its present form.
The Bill also creates direct personal offences
Parallel to organisational liability, Part 3 would replace the common law offence of misconduct in public office with new statutory offences. One of those is the offence of seriously improper acts.
A person holding public office would commit the offence where they use, or fail to use, their office to obtain a benefit for themselves or another person, or to cause another person detriment, and they know or ought to know that the act is seriously improper. Importantly, ‘using’ public office expressly includes failing to use a power or position. That means omission may be as important as positive action. The maximum sentence is currently ten years’ imprisonment.
This changes the risk around executive inaction
That omission element deserves particular attention. Some of the most significant public sector failures do not necessarily involve a senior person issuing an obviously unlawful instruction. They may involve a senior person choosing not to act.
Examples might include knowingly failing to:
- escalate suspected fraud
- address a serious conflict of interest
- stop an improper procurement
- correct misleading information
- disclose evidence
- investigate a serious allegation
- protect a whistleblower
- challenge known misconduct
- prevent an improper payment
- respond to repeated control failures
- exercise a power specifically available to protect the public interest
Whether any individual case satisfies the criminal threshold will depend on the evidence and statutory tests. But risk assessments should no longer focus exclusively on what leaders actively do. They should consider what they knowingly permit to continue.
A new concept of organisational accountability
The practical significance of the Bill is therefore that three different forms of accountability may coexist.
Liability of the public authority
The authority itself may potentially commit certain offences, including failure to comply with the duty of candour and seriously improperly misleading the public.
Personal liability linked to the authority’s offence
Where the body commits one of those offences with the consent or connivance of an appropriate director, manager or similar officer, that individual may also become criminally liable.
Direct personal liability of the office-holder
Separately, an individual holding public office may potentially commit the proposed seriously improper acts offence or the proposed offence concerning breach of a duty to prevent death or serious injury.
This creates a much more complex accountability landscape than a conventional disciplinary or governance framework.
The ethical conduct duty matters too
The criminal provisions will naturally attract attention. But the Bill also contains an important organisational governance requirement. Public authorities would be required to promote and maintain high standards of ethical conduct.
The Bill identifies the principles of:
- selflessness
- integrity
- objectivity
- accountability
- openness
- honesty
- leadership
Authorities would also be required to adopt a code of ethical conduct, make employees aware of it, explain practical expectations, define disciplinary consequences (including circumstances potentially amounting to gross misconduct) and provide routes through which concerns can be raised.
This is not merely a communications exercise. If enacted, boards should expect questions about whether the ethical framework was genuinely embedded.
A policy on the intranet will not be enough
An authority facing scrutiny after a serious incident may need to demonstrate:
- what ethical standards existed
- what employees were told
- what training was delivered
- what leaders communicated
- what reporting routes existed
- whether staff trusted those routes
- whether concerns were escalated
- what happened to whistleblowers
- whether breaches resulted in action
- whether senior people were treated differently
- and whether lessons from previous incidents were implemented
The investigation model may need to change
The Bill has particularly significant implications for internal investigations. Consider an allegation that a senior executive concealed serious wrongdoing. Under a conventional model, that executive may sit within a chain of command controlling internal audit, legal services, HR, counter fraud, communications, document access and the appointment of external investigators.
That arrangement becomes difficult if the organisation itself may also face criminal exposure. An internal investigation could potentially involve the organisation as a potential suspect, one or more senior officials as potential suspects, employees as witnesses, the board as the commissioning body, and insurers, regulators and law enforcement as interested external parties. Independence and governance become critical.
The public body and the executive may no longer have identical interests
Following a serious allegation, the interests of the organisation and an individual senior executive may diverge. The authority may need to demonstrate that it expected disclosure, the executive acted contrary to policy, misconduct was concealed from the board, the organisation responded once aware, and remediation was immediate. The executive may take a different position.
Public bodies therefore need to consider in advance when separate legal representation may be required, who commissions investigations, who receives investigation reports, who controls privilege, how conflicts are identified, when the chief executive must be bypassed, when non-executives should take control, and when external referral is required. These questions should not be designed for the first time during a crisis.
Interaction with procurement and fraud risk
The implications extend directly into procurement and financial crime. Suppose a senior official has knowingly concealed serious procurement misconduct. That conduct could potentially engage several different regimes depending on the evidence: procurement law remedies, employment and disciplinary consequences, fraud by abuse of position, bribery offences, the new statutory misconduct offence if enacted, the misleading the public offence if public statements are involved, and potentially organisational exposure if the public authority itself participates in seriously improper misleading conduct.
The important point is not that every procurement failure becomes criminal. It does not. The point is that a serious incident can create multiple overlapping routes to liability.
Risk assessments must now include concealment risk
Public bodies traditionally conduct risk assessments around the underlying event. The new environment requires another layer: what is the risk created by the organisation’s response after the event? That response risk includes:
- concealment
- misleading statements
- incomplete disclosure
- poor record preservation
- retaliation
- defensive investigations
- suppression of findings
- lack of candour
- inaccurate board reporting
- misleading public communications
- failure to correct previous statements
An organisation may therefore compound an original failure through the way it responds to it.
“Cover up risk” becomes a governance risk
There is an uncomfortable but important lesson from many major public scandals. The subsequent institutional response can create damage as serious as, or greater than, the original event.
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill is designed directly around that issue. The House of Commons Library identifies the Bill’s origins in concerns arising from incidents including Hillsborough, the Post Office Horizon scandal, Grenfell and the infected blood scandal, where institutional defensiveness, information failures and the experiences of affected families contributed to calls for statutory reform.
What should boards do now?
Public bodies do not need to wait for final legislation to strengthen arrangements that represent sound governance in any event.
Map accountability
Identify the chief executive, accounting officer, statutory officers, investigation leads, monitoring officer, finance leadership, information governance, internal audit, counter-fraud, HR, communications and non-executive escalation routes. Clarify who takes control when allegations involve senior leadership.
Review codes of conduct
Assess whether the organisation’s current ethical framework genuinely addresses candour, openness, correction of errors, conflicts, concealment, investigation cooperation, record preservation, whistleblowing, gross misconduct and leadership responsibilities.
Review Speak-Up arrangements
Ask whether a person can raise concerns about their manager, a director, the chief executive, the board, legal services, internal audit or the organisation itself without being forced to report through the person they are concerned about.
Review investigation governance
Create protocols for investigations involving senior officials, addressing commissioning authority, independence, legal privilege, evidence, terms of reference, data preservation, reporting, escalation, conflicts, regulators, law enforcement and communications.
Review document and evidence management
Ensure that retention schedules are appropriate, legal holds can be implemented rapidly, Teams, email and messaging data can be preserved, investigation material is access-controlled, decisions are recorded, audit trails cannot be casually overwritten and deletion can be suspended.
Test executive reporting
Challenge whether management information accurately exposes serious incidents, overdue investigations, whistleblowing concerns, procurement exceptions, litigation, regulatory findings, control failures, fraud losses, safeguarding events and remediation.
Scenario-test the organisation
A useful test would be: “Tomorrow we receive evidence alleging that a member of the executive team knowingly concealed serious wrongdoing. Who takes control in the first 24 hours?”
If the answer is unclear, the governance framework is not ready.
How Verix Advisory can help
Verix Advisory helps public bodies prepare for an accountability environment in which organisational response, senior conduct and investigation governance may all carry significantly greater consequences.
Public Office Accountability readiness reviews
We assess existing arrangements against the emerging requirements of the Bill, identifying gaps in governance, candour, executive accountability, codes of conduct, investigations, whistleblowing, evidence management, communications and assurance.
Personal and organisational liability mapping
We map where potential exposure could arise across the authority, chief executives, directors, statutory officers, senior managers and other public office-holders, helping boards understand how the same event could create different liabilities for different actors.
Ethical framework reviews
We assess whether codes of conduct and associated disciplinary arrangements are capable of meeting the new direction of travel.
Independent investigation frameworks
We design governance structures for serious allegations involving senior officials, including escalation outside ordinary management chains.
Candour and disclosure protocols
We help authorities establish procedures for inquiry response, information identification, preservation, disclosure, correction, position statements, executive certification and independent quality assurance.
Fraud and procurement risk integration
We incorporate management override, concealment, conflicts, procurement manipulation, false reporting and obstruction into enterprise fraud risk assessments.
Board and executive scenario exercises
We conduct realistic exercises testing how an organisation would respond to a major public inquiry, senior executive misconduct, procurement allegations, a whistleblower disclosure, document preservation requirements, suspected misleading statements or simultaneous organisational and individual exposure.
Independent assurance
We test whether policies work in practice and provide boards with objective assurance over escalation, investigation independence, cultural indicators, executive challenge, record keeping, remediation and reporting.
The new risk is not simply misconduct: it is institutional response
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill should cause public sector leaders to rethink the way they assess accountability risk. An organisation may suffer an operational failure. An individual may commit misconduct. But what happens next may determine whether the matter develops into something much more serious.
If enacted substantially as drafted, the Bill creates the possibility that the official may be personally liable, the public authority may itself be criminally liable, and a senior officer who consented to or connived in the authority’s offending may also face prosecution. That creates a compelling case for public bodies to strengthen their governance before the first major test arrives.
The organisations best placed to manage this environment will not simply have policies requiring honesty. They will be able to demonstrate that:
- leaders are expected to be candid
- evidence is preserved
- concerns bypass conflicted management
- investigations are genuinely independent
- boards receive the truth
- errors are corrected
- whistleblowers are protected
- institutional reputation is never placed ahead of lawful accountability
The emerging legal environment is moving public sector accountability from an expectation of good governance towards a framework in which serious institutional and individual failures may carry direct criminal consequences.
This article reflects the Public Office (Accountability) Bill as it stands on 8 October 2026. The Bill remains before Parliament and may be amended before Royal Assent. This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice.
