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

6. THE RELEVANT PUBLIC’S WANTS6.1 Public opinionIn our view, the starting point in any public interest consideration is what the relevant publicwants. Popular opinion must be relevant in considering what is required in the public interest.We argue that the public interest is not an absolute value, but a variable that depends, amongother things, on points of view. Different people arrive at decisions applying different sets ofvalues and perspectives and there will not be a uniform view. The ‘weight of public opinion’is another way of saying ‘the majority view’ and, particularly in a democracy, the view of themajority must prevail to avoid dictatorship by the few. 99 There will be occasions when thatview needs to be tempered or adjusted: the public’s wants may be based on incomplete orerroneous information and there may be other constraints to those wants that need to be takeninto consideration (indeed sometimes core values may need to be the starting point). These areconsidered in Chapter 7 but overriding wants needs to be transparent and justified. In the longterm the actual wants may become aligned with the ‘adjusted wants’ but if not, reputation andultimately remit to act will suffer.Panel 6.1: Historical perspective on public opinionPublic opinion, which might extend beyond those with an immediate interest, has waxedand waned in importance in terms of influencing policy.From a European perspective it rose in importance during the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies due to a number of factors:• the abolition of censorship as a result of, for example, the lapse of the Licensing Orderin England in 1689;• the decline of individual royal or aristocratic patronage; and• the rise in literacy among the middle classes in particular, who congregated in coffeehouses, salons and reading circles. 100The rise in public debt in, for example, France in the eighteenth century meant that thepublic had to be taken note of. 101Views have also differed, affected no doubt by the differing natures of the surroundingsocieties, as to whether popular opinion was something that should be used to shape policyor moulded to appreciate policy. The latter is considered further below.Condorcet, for example, favoured education to avoid the ‘philosophical errors’ that he thoughtwere responsible for ‘all errors in government and in society’. Metternich saw only ‘preposterousfolly’ in considering public opinion. Canning on the other hand believed it was ‘a power moretremendous than was perhaps ever yet brought into action in the history of mankind.’ 102In the long term, all governments are accountable to public opinion but the widening ofthe electoral franchise in many countries over the nineteenth and, particularly, twentiethcenturies, to create more democratic institutions brought more immediacy to the role ofpopular opinion in shaping government policies.6.2 Public needs and wantsPreviously we considered a historical perspective on the development of the public interest.This evolved into a set of state interventions to ensure certain basic standards that allowedpeople to go about their business. There has been no shortage of writings at least touching onthe extent and role of interventions needed. The recurring requirements can be summarised thus:99Prout, ‘Public Opinion and the Public Interest’.100Speier, ‘Historical Development of Public Opinion’.101Acton, referred to in Speier, ibid.102All quoted in Speier, ibid.38The relevant public’s wants