Glossary term
Ethics Committee
Subject: Governance, Ethics, Conduct and Whistleblowing
Also known as: Ethics and Compliance Committee
An ethics committee is a group, usually at board or senior management level, that oversees an organisation's ethical standards, reviews difficult cases and monitors how well its code of ethics is followed.
Explanation
Board-level versions often sit within an audit or governance committee or stand alone, while management versions bring together heads of compliance, HR, legal and the business. Typical duties include approving the code of ethics, reviewing reports from the ethics hotline, deciding on serious conduct cases, reading training and survey results, and reporting to the board on culture. Some organisations call it an ethics and compliance committee. In hospitals and research bodies a different kind of ethics committee exists, which reviews studies involving people. Its value depends on independence and attendance: a committee that only meets to approve papers adds little. Directors who sit on it read case summaries and trends, which gives the board evidence beyond management's own account.
Example
A manufacturer's ethics committee reviews quarterly hotline data and sees that complaints about one plant's supervisors have doubled. It asks internal audit to investigate, and the review finds pressure on staff to under-record overtime. The committee orders retraining, changes the supervisors' targets and tells the board how the matter was resolved.
Not to be confused with
- Audit Committee
- An audit committee oversees financial reporting, audit and controls. An ethics committee focuses on conduct and values.