Ross Gittins (‘Looking to Aristotle for a guide on reform‘, 20/4) wants us to think that public-sector institutions would work more effectively if the professionals within them were given “more scope to do the right thing in the right way”. His arguments are fuelled by criticism of traditional, top-down methods of reform.
Gittins, though, has missed one key factor that bedevils institutions. No-one at the top of any of our public institutions and agencies is required to make public declarations of their financial arrangements.
This particular lack of transparency at the top may be a form of drip-down corrosion that paralyses the virtue of doing good for the sake of others.
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