Appropriate responses – High-quality dialogue is an essential pre-requisite for ensuring that public bodies respond appropriately to unexpected scenarios

A nurse offers to pray for a sick patient; two comedians overstep the mark on a radio show; another TV personality utters an unacceptable term in the “green” room. When, in the first case a Health Authority reacts, and the BBC in the other cases take action, it prompts an intense public debate. Clearly, there is no consensus as to what is an appropriate response.

Quite possibly, these types of decisions are amongst the most difficult judgements that senior managers have to make in the public sector. Being beastly to bankers is now probably the only non-contentious criticism of a group of people that one can imagine being acceptable, as commentators and public officials struggle to balance the desire to call a spade a spade without causing gratuitous offence.