Sean Barrett (Independent)

Are codes of practice and guidelines any use to us if they do not have the force of law? On the one hand, we have laws, statutes, ordinances but if there are not strict definitions of a code of practice and the penalties for adhering to them, and the same applies for not being guided by guidelines, do they help? Is this a kind of mangerialism creeping into the law and does the fact that they are in place amount to - to use the methaphor - a hill of beans?