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

Panel 7.6: ICAEW and clarity of values (continued)Further work is being done in this area: for example ICAEW’s on-going Market Foundationsthought leadership work and a paper by the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens,which has been exploring the need for further guidance on integrity in professionalethics. 170 In addition, ICAEW is carrying out work with the TEEB coalition (The Economics ofEcosystems and Biodiversity 171 ) which addresses the importance of ecosystem services andthe value of biodiversity to the economy. This work highlights the problems of defining andagreeing values that underlie the necessary ethical frameworks, and throws up the challengeof adjusting the public’s wants or even overriding them legitimately with replacement values.7.5 Chapter summaryThe relevant public’s wants may be incompatible with a public interest outcome for a numberof reasons:• the overall impact of individual wants may be a sub-optimal outcome through the effectof one person’s activities directly affecting another’s, or through what the public think theywant being distorted by incomplete or wrong information;• common goods and services and other externalities, which result in a different marginalcost-benefit to individuals than to society as a whole, especially taking qualitative issuesinto account;• over-riding values, arising for example, from seeking to lead a change in attitudes; or• over discounting of future effects compared to current impact.As a result the relevant public’s wants may need to be adjusted. However, a ‘we know better’attitude is rightly open to challenge and there will be an onus on advocates of public interestactions to explain why they know better.170Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens, Integrity in Professional Ethics: A Discussion Paper and Analysis of Responses.171www.teebweb.org52Constraints to wants