Blame avoidance

Benefits and shortcomings of a project do not accrue until possibly years later, well after the project's originators have passed from the scene. When the shortcomings do become apparent, the incumbent policy makers can justifiably place the blame upon their predecessors.

Following severe criticism of the civil service in the UK in 1993, in which government ministers had shifted responsibility onto civil servants for withholding information and misleading Parliament, a code of ethics was proposed by the latter to avoid such accusations.

1. Irresponsibility
2. Disorders of freedom
3. Depersonalization of responsibility

1. Systemic avoidance of responsibility
2. Neglect of environmental consequences of government policies

1. Self-destructive excuses
2. Scapegoats
3. Refusal to accept responsibility for others
4. Issue avoidance
5. Inappropriate managed care regimes
6. Counter-dependency
7. Conceptual repression of problems
8. Avoidance of reality
9. Avoidance of negative feedback
10. Avoidance of decision-making
11. Abdication of responsibility on achieving political office

1. Unclear legal responsibility
2. Irresponsible delimitation of policy responsibilities
3. Ignoring evidence
4. Failure of government to apologize for errors
5. Deliberate ignorance during policy-making
6. Collusion between administrators of funding agencies and programme formulators
7. Avoidance of legal obligations by politicians

1. Risk avoidance

1. Avoiding blame

1. Responsibility
2. Irresponsibility
3. Blame
4. Avoidance