The Oversight Relationship

Here's an interesting local government ethics scenario from Ottawa that deals with the often neglected oversight relationship. According to an article this week in the Ottawa Citizen, six people died in a recent bus-train accident at the Woodroffe Avenue train crossing in Ottawa. This brought attention to the safety of the train crossing's design.

It turns out that the consultant who designed the train crossing is married to the city's deputy city manager in charge of transportation, that is, the official in charge of the train crossing's safety. But when the consultant designed the crossing in 2004, her husband was not a city employee. He was vice-president in charge of the Ottawa office of the consulting firm that administered a safety assessment of the train crossing and designed a wider version of the crossing and the adjacent stretch of the Transitway.

In other words, since the train crossing was designed, the designer's husband has worn two hats, as consultant and as official, both of which were responsible for oversight of what his wife designed.

But the city says that there is no conflict of interest. The city spokesperson said that, at the time the wife started doing work for the city, the Auditor General reviewed all potential conflicts of interest and was satisfied that she conducted herself appropriately throughout to ensure no conflict arose.

The problem here is that people think conflicts of interest are all about transactions. Did the couple do business together? It does not appear that they did. Their relationship does not appear to have led to any contracts, and there does not appear to have been any influence or decisions by either of them that could benefit the other financially.

But when it comes to conflicts, transactions are not all that is important. Oversight is equally important. Neither an official nor a consultant should be in a position of oversight over a spouse or the work of a spouse. It is difficult for a spouse to publicly criticize or undo the work of a spouse. And if nothing is done and things go wrong, as happened in this case, it will look to the public as if the official or consultant failed to act in order to protect the spouse's reputation, or simply because he did not want to rock the marriage boat.

If an official or government consultant finds himself in a position of oversight over a family member, business associate, or even a close friend, he should publicly withdraw from participation and let someone else, or another company or agency, provide the oversight. If the individual is in charge of an office, he should not simply hand the work over to a subordinate, because the subordinate will feel equally uncomfortable criticizing or undoing the work of her boss's spouse. The oversight responsibility should go up or across, not down.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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