The Ethics Committee in essence is rather simple. Justify and quantify if an evil act is permissible to protect the Foundation from its own hubris or selfish ambition. On SCP-RP UK, there is a general sense of secrecy regarding an Ethics Member's position within the Foundation as a whole. The only group to know the elevated status of The Ethics Committee is the Overseer Council who are aware of The Administrator's role in the Committee's implementation. What the Council is completely oblivious to is their true purpose, Primary Action. This will be elaborated on further along.

Within the scope of Clearance Level 1, 2 and 3, The Committee is nothing more than Human Resources on steroids. If there is a complaint, or something or someone has violated the Legal Codex then The Committee tends to intervene via various tools at their disposal, i.e.: Tribunals.
This is referred to as 'The Longest Lie' and keeps the Committee's position within the Foundation secret to those in the aforementioned bracket. 

“As I am sure you are aware: the Ethics Committee is a CL4 organisation that concerns itself with ensuring that the Foundation upholds high standards of ethics and keeps humanitarian values at the centre of its operations. This means ensuring that the human resource is never overlooked in the pursuit of progress, even the D-Class.”

This is the longest standing and greatest lie that the Foundation has ever perpetuated - you will continue to perpetuate this lie under penalty of death.

The Ethics Committee is the ‘front of house’ name of a nameless CL5 branch of Foundation Command. The branch is an investigatory authority who commits itself to ensuring that the Foundation does not deviate away from its core principles of Secure, Contain, Protect. The Committee imposes corrective measures against Foundation personnel who are evidenced to be ethically compromised that range in severity from minor reprimand to covert assassination. 

The Ethics Committee was founded in order to achieve a singular purpose: to protect the O5 Council against corruption. This is achieved by monitoring the Council’s practices and intervening against them when they are found to be performing or promoting unethical procedures. When enacting the True Purpose an ECM will only ever take an advisory role while engaging with the O5, they will not attempt to issue directives or threats - to do so would risk alluding to The Primary Action. 

However, on SCP RP UK there is an accountability process to avoid unnecessary violence with "AO Wars". If  an Overseer is stepping out of alignment with the mission statement and is approaching the point of no return rapidly, they'll be met by an Ethics Member who would be advising the Overseer on the dangers of straying too far. If said Overseer would not heed the advice given, further action may be undertaken.

The utilisation of MTF Omega-1 to mass terminate the O5 Council and recruit new council members. The Primary Action may only be performed as a result of an Ethics Committee vote and is a final solution to an O5 Council that has deviated so far from the Foundation’s core principles that it is beyond recovery. The initiation of the Primary Action represents a failure of the Ethics Committee to perform the True Purpose. 

The usage of this has been extremely rare on SCP RP UK as the implications of such an event would require a general consensus of killing each others characters off. This has only ever happened once during the term of Ethics Chairwoman Maeve Glass and O5-1 'The Nihilist' where the action failed, prompting the Administrator's brutal intervention.

  What are the responsibilities of an Ethics Member?

• Having a strong understanding of the Foundation Legal Codex

• Inspecting Foundation-wide practices to ensure that high standards of ethics and conduct are being upheld according to the mission statement.

• Observation of testing when notified either undercover or openly.

• Implementing themselves as an enforcer of the Foundation Legal Codex 

(FLC) when CL4+ personnel are evidenced to commit ethics infractions

• Hold the Overseer Council to account via a passive approach when there is a fall in quality and/or danger emanating from them. Advise where possible.

• Amend, uphold and enforce the Foundation Legal Codex.

• Acting as Presiding Judge of Tribunal cases.

• Management of Internal Security Directors.

• Management and tasking of Ethics Committee Assistants.

• Involving Ethics Committee Assistants with Ethics Committee projects.

• Conducting routine audits of departments that are subject to the FLC

• Inspiration of non-routine roleplay scenarios within the player base

• Collaborating with the O5 Council on roleplay scenarios and roleplay storylines

• Utilisation of Mobile Task Force Omega-1 to execute the will of the Ethics Committee

• Authorisation of mass-termination of D-Class personnel

• Management of on-Site crisis events such as Codes 3, 4, 5 and Code-Black

• Use of the Alpha Warhead/ERT to reset RP if the RP has degraded beyond recovery due to extreme Code-5 scenarios

• Ensuring ethical and humane treatment of D-Class research material

Act using Site Command Guidelines as a minimum requirement for the role. 

                      additional Reading material

For a more in-depth, broader understanding of The Ethics Committee at large, I'd highly recommend you read articles on the official SCP Wiki. SCP RP UK is based off the Tanhony's Proposal.

Ethics Committee Orientation: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ethics-committee-orientation

The Ethics Committee’s Guide to Human Anomalies:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ethics-guide

D-Class Housing Regulations:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ethics-committee-class-d-housing-regulations

Ethics Committee Tales:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/system:page-tags/tag/ethics-committee#pages