Sally March (sjmarch10@gmail.com) is Director, Drummond March & Co, in London, UK.
As ethics and compliance professionals, we may be challenged on the relationship between culture and compliance. Culture and trust are essential to an effective compliance program. This has never been more important than in these challenging times.
In the UK, public trust in government has been low and flat for many years.[1] However, there is still high regard for our National Health Service (NHS) and trust in our scientists.[2] So when the government announced that it would be guided by the science in its response to the COVID-19 crisis, it was able to implement unprecedented measures with a high degree of trust from the public. That heightened level of public trust coincided with an initial high degree of compliance with lockdowns and other public health measures before government trust fell again.[3] Behavioral scientists have been working alongside epidemiologists to enhance compliance—and there are lessons for us as well.