The Commission will operate as an advisory non-departmental division of the Cabinet and will be directly subordinate to the Prime Minister.

This structure will replace the Committee on Standards in Public Life and will undertake control over compliance with the ethical standards for the public sector servants and employees (the Seven Principles of Public Life also known as the Nolan Principles). These standards are applicable, inter alia, to:

• ministers, public servants and special advisers, as well as the holders of offices in the central government who are not ministers;
• MPs and peers sitting in the House of Lords;
• officials of all public bodies and other bodies exercising public functions;
• elected officials of local government bodies;
• private and voluntary organisations contributing to the provision of public services commissioned by public bodies or publicly funded.

The Commission will have, in particular, the following duties:

• undertake surveys and dedicated investigation, put forward recommendations on amendments to the existing compliance mechanisms;
• analyse existing challenges and submit an annual report on the state of standards to the attention of the Prime Minister;
• provide advice to public bodies on the development of the codes of ethics;
• raise public awareness about the values, rules and mechanisms of oversight that regulate the standards of public life;
• organise meetings of the central government ethics and standards bodies (and the Parliament standard bodies with their consent) to exchange best practices and identify and address the issues of mutual interest.

The Commission, however, will not be a regulatory body and will not have the powers to investigate specific cases of infringement of standards.

The Commission will consist of ten persons: an independent chairman, six independent members (three out of which have been appointed as of today) and political members appointed by the leaders of the three major national political parties (as of now, there are four such members, next June their number will be reduced to three).

The establishment of the Commission is another step towards fulfilling the obligation to "restore trust in politics" assumed by the Labour Party.

The U.K. government had previously issued an updated Ministerial Code, expanded the powers of the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards and established a new registry of gifts and hospitality of ministers.

Along with the establishment of the Ethics and Integrity Commission the Cabinet has outlined the following changes:

• with regard to the ministerial severance payments – depending on their term in office and the facts of commission of serious breaches of the Ministerial Code;
• with regard to the business appointment of ministers after they leave their office – in particular, top civil servants will now submit relevant applications to the Civil Service Commission, while ministers will file them to the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards; the pre-existing Advisory Committee on Business Appointments is closed.