Acting in the public interest – a framework for analysis - ICAEW

These resulted in, for example:• roads – roads were needed for the economy but turnpike trusts could not afford tomaintain them and the last ones ended around the time of the 1888 Local GovernmentAct. Gradually local and later national authorities took up construction and maintenance;• railways – high infrastructure investment costs and competition led to expensive duplicationin some areas and monopolies in others: the 1873 and 1888 Railway and Canal Traffic Actssought more regulation of collaboration agreements and carriage rates;• the telegraph – too much infrastructure was needed for private companies to complete afull network and the result was a nationalisation into the Post Office in 1870;• utilities – water and gas supply were largely municipalised in the late 1800s to provide thehigh investment required to ensure adequate health and supply standards;• housing – the government passed various acts to address the worst areas of housing unfitfor habitation or to improve or demolish existing houses, including for example the 1890Housing of the Working Classes Act;• education – the 1870 Elementary Education Act established a framework to require basiceducation, as a workforce was needed capable of remaining at the forefront of technology;and• civic amenities – local authorities increasingly developed civic enhancements as publicgoods, building on civic pride and the need for improved conditions. 53Thus the protection of the public interest changed from being, at least notionally, somethingintrinsically built in to underlying duties and values, to something needing to be addressed byintervention in the theoretically free market state: ‘protected laissez-faire’.We can summarise the purpose of Victorian-era interventions markets as being to:• ensure certain minimum living standards; or• create ‘goods’ that the public desired but would not pay for directly; or• create an infrastructure considered necessary in a wider context to enhance the economy.These limited interventions, among other things, sought to provide a stable platform for peopleto go about their business.The role of public opinion in directly influencing or framing public interest actions is discussedin Panel 6.1.2.9 Chapter summaryIn most societies there is a basic presumption that people should be able to go about their ownbusiness in their own interests. In the course of this they will interact with other people andinfluence and be influenced by their activities. However, there is a further influence on people’sactivities: when governments, regulators and others seek to intervene in the public interest.The public interest is an abstract notion and this chapter looks at its historical development.Advocating something as being in the public interest involves setting oneself up in judgementas to whether an action or requirement to change behaviour will benefit the public overall – afar greater set of people than can be interacted with directly. It involves interference in people’sability to go about their business or sometimes, as a positive policy decision, non-interferencein the face of alternative measures.This requires justification by advocates of an action, that they have an ability and right todecide what is for the greater good, in the face of a natural suspicion that those proposing theaction are actually acting in their own interests. In this context this chapter also considered whyprofessional bodies accept a public interest responsibility.Other terms can be used, largely interchangeably. Examples include public benefit, the publicgood, and the common good. While we use the public interest throughout, the same issuesapply to use of these other terms.We do not seek to establish a detailed definition of the public interest. There is an infinitelywide set of individual circumstances, which detailed definitions are unlikely to be able to copewith, without unintended consequences.53Based on Mulholland, ibid.Introduction17