The importance of ethics

An ethical code with a disciplinary procedure is important for any professional body. Responding to the downturn, the ACT remodelled its facilities this year so that more training courses could be run at 51 Moorgate.

The new rooms are called Lydia, Houblon, Stora and Virginia. They had to be called something. The previous rooms had numbers and no one knew which was which.
John Houblon was the first Governor of the Bank of England. Stora (of Sweden and now Stora Enso after merging with a Finnish company) has some claim to be the first limited liability company. Virginia was named after the first British joint stock company. Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (the Dutch United East India Company), the first joint stock company listed on a stock exchange and Japanese construction company Kongo (Kongo Gumi, the company in business longest, founded in Japan in 578 and going bust in 2006 is now a subsidiary of Takamatsu) did not make the cut.

The final room is Lydia. Lydia, the Greek Kingdom in Western Anatolia, was where, at Ephesus, use of coins in Europe is said to have originated. Henan, the Chinese province where, so far, the oldest coins have been found (at Anyang) was a rejected alternative.

But Lydia has other claims to fame.

It was the home of Gyges the Shepherd - poor but honest. In 'The Republic', Plato has Gyges find a ring conferring the power of invisibility. He seduced the Queen, killed the King and took over the Kingdom. He illustrates the idea that, while he might appear moral in public, no man can resist the way to power and riches offered if, with invisibility, he could steal and kill at will.

I said that an ethical code is a feature of professional bodies. However, when I wrote a dissertation on professional codes earlier this decade I found many bodies lacked one. Engineering and medical bodies merely required members to avoid killing the public by poor work. The Engineering Council UK, overseer of engineering and scientific professions in the country, had just demanded they add matters like fair dealing, probity and honesty in a code with a disciplinary procedure, features lawyers and accounting bodies already showed.

The Chartered Institute of Bankers simply required members to refrain from "unprofessional conduct or conduct of an immoral, scandalous or disgraceful nature" and this had not changed since the 19th Century.

The ACT has an ethical code (http://www.treasurers.org/ethicalcode) and disciplinary rules (http://www.treasurers.org/disciplinaryrules). The Members' confidential advisor for those facing ethical dilemmas is The Very Reverend Justin Welby, Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, T: 0151 702 7202, E: dean@liverpoolcathedral.org.uk – and formerly Treasurer of Enterprise Oil.

By John Grout