Ethics and corruption
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Ethics and corruption |
THE MANAGEMENT OF ETHICS AND CONDUCT IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
By the State Services Commission, New
Zealand
(This Case Study reflects the situation in December 1995)
I. The Public Service Environment
III. The Ethics Infrastructure
I. The Public Service Environment
In 1993 New Zealanders voted to introduce a proportional representation electoral system. The new electoral system represents a further departure from the "Westminster" style of government, and a particular challenge for the Public Service. That decision has, and is likely to continue to have, a significant effect, on the environment within which the Public Service operates, and upon the "constants" governing the behaviour of both public servants and those with whom they interact in their duties. In those circumstances respective roles and relationships are bound to be subjected to change.
Much effort in the last ten years has focused attention on improving the quality of departmental policy advice and of the services provided by the Public Service on behalf of the Government. Perceptions and criticisms about the state of the Public Service before the advent of the recent reforms emphasised an excess of "red tape", bureaucracy, insularity, and intransigence. Today, there has been a marked improvement in the competence of the Public Service to do the business of government, although there are still areas where improvements can be made.
The environment within the Public Service has changed, and is changing. The move to a devolved, decentralised, and refocused Public Service has created an atmosphere of relative buoyancy and optimism. Departments have mainly relished the new autonomy afforded them, and improved management and information systems exist. All in all, the environment reflects much more confidence than in the past.
Public scrutiny of the performance of the Public Service in this regard has increased in recent times, and the news media are quick to report public interest matters, particularly those involving the management and use of resources which have been appropriated or entrusted to departments. In addition, the monitoring role of various committees of the House of Representatives, indeed of Parliament itself, has been strengthened, mainly because of better information flows.
Apart from one or two exceptions the Public Service bears scrutiny very well, suggesting that attention to its stewardship and guardianship roles has been sustained or increased, during a period when devolution of responsibility has led to the development of strong departmental cultures.
There are few reliable measures of confidence and trust short of actually surveying the public and politicians' attitudes. No such surveys have been undertaken.
What is certain is that people's attitudes are greatly affected by their experiences, and by what they read and hear. An absence of adverse comment about a service is one measure that can denote satisfaction. Departments have generally been much more aware of their obligations to maintain appropriate levels of service, and some have instituted standards in the form of service agreements with their publics.
In spite of all the changes for the better that have occurred since the early 1980s in New Zealand State sector reform, their remains a healthy debate about the Public Service's stewardship and guardianship roles, But, it is gauged from within to be more positive than not.
In a cultural sense the Public Service has rapidly shed the characteristics of a relatively "closed society" to being more like an "open society". The importation of new management approaches, the introduction of many private sector analogues, a changed employment regime (particularly with respect to entry and exit, certainty and uncertainty of employment), devolution of decision making, a greater emphasis on results than process, less control from the centre, and more identification with the development of departmental "cultures" have all contributed to this phenomenon.
The State Services Commission, as the central agency with the statutory responsibility to prescribe "minimum standards of integrity and conduct that are to apply in the Public Service" (section 57, State Sector Act 1988), issued a Public Service Code of Conduct in 1990.
Since then, most departments and ministries within the Public Service have built on that precedent by issuing their own codes to reflect or suit particular operational requirements and circumstances.
In 1991 the State Services Commission commissioned a set of essays titled Public Service and Public Servants: Administrative Practice in a Time of Change. That initiative was taken at a time when many of the significant reforms to the Public Service had been implemented, but were still quite new. The aim was to re-kindle an interest within the senior Public Service about duty, and to raise awareness about the need to re-affirm what were thought to be the "constants" governing the behaviour of public servants.
In September 1995 the State Services Commission completed a lengthy project to produce guidance material to articulate and promote those "constants", and to provide a comprehensive reference to working in the Public Service. The resulting publication, the Public Service Principles, Conventions and Practice guidance series, is now available to all chief executives, senior managers, and public servants generally. It forms a basis for understanding what constitutes appropriate conduct, and gives expression to expected, common Public Service ethical values and standards.
There are ten papers in the guidance series, including the Introduction. The Constitutional Setting emphasises the importance of understanding the inescapable political nature of the environment in which public servants work, and the trust reposed in all those who hold public office. The Public Service and Parliament provides a brief introduction and guide to public servants and their relationships with Parliament. The companion to this paper, The Public Service and Government, offers the reader a succinct reference to understanding the essence and importance of the relationship between the Public Service and successive governments the Public Service exists to serve. The prime duty to the Government of the day through a Responsible Minister and the conventions and practice that support that principle, are underlined. The Public Service and the Law describes the public servant's higher duty to the law, and gives meaning to the oft-quoted, but little-thought-about phrases such as "the rule of law", and "the principles of natural justice".
In The Public Service and the Public the aim is to underscore the twin notions of duty to the Government of the day and the trusteeship and stewardship of public interests. The paper acknowledges the difficulties of always finding an appropriate balance between the two functions. The Public Service and the Treaty of Waitangi provides insights into the principles of the Treaty (signed between the Crown and New Zealand's indigenous people) and examines the basis of good process, consultation, and good faith in the issues, both historical and contemporary, of that founding document of New Zealand government. The purpose of The Public Service and Official Information is to indicate the principles according to which public servants should act on issues of information and privacy. The Public Service Employer is written for departmental Chief Executives and senior managers as a guide to good employer obligations and behaviour. The Senior Public Servant discusses issues that arise for senior public servants, and describes the attributes of a professional public servant.
In 1994 the State Services Commission convened a group representing government departments and outside experts to give thought to the issues likely to confront the Public Service in the run-up to the election of a government under a new electoral process. The result is publication of a book (Working Under Proportional Representation: A Reference for the Public Service) containing a summary of the broad constitutional and political conditions within which the Public Service operates, and a description of how the principles of government, and government administration, are translated into the systems and processes of executive government. The book also explores what changes can be expected in working in the new environment, particularly with the probability of coalition or minority governments.
Public Service reform has focused on improving management competency, restructuring departments and reallocating functions among departments, and making the Public Service better equipped to do the business asked of it. The core values that are engendered by this concentration of effort are mainly concerned with being efficient, purposeful, and accountable. That approach, of course, does not eschew other core values usually associated with public services such as honesty, integrity, fairness, or non-partisanship, but it does mean that public servants need to be imbued with a wider range of values than before.
It is the intention of the State Services Commission to develop and promote ethical sensitivity and awareness within the Public Service, as a complement to the values already inculcated or absorbed. The aim is to use the Public Service Principles, Conventions and Practice guidance series as a stimulus - to engage chief executives and encourage them to introduce training and education programmes on ethics in departments, and to facilitate a strong ethical dimension in the development of common frameworks.
The State Services Commission has a primary role within the Public Service to provide leadership in the maintenance of an apolitical and effective Public Service, with a high standard of ethical and professional behaviour, during and after the transition to a proportional representation environment.
The Commission intends to develop programmes to support this role in a positive, active way. The objective is to promote ethical conduct at an individual and organisational level consistent with a devolved management system, using an integrity-based approach, rather than a more traditional compliance or rule-based approach.
There are 39 departments in the Public Service (employing a total of around 35,000 staff) and many are too small to offer comprehensive, in-house education and training on ethics to new or existing staff.
It is now recognised that ethical awareness and sensitivity cannot be assumed. The transmission of important cultural values will not necessarily occur unless undertaken in a planned, and systematic way. The process of acculturation, particularly in a more "open" cultural environment where the boundaries are unclear and open to influence from outside, needs to be deliberate.
As noted above, in order to meet this challenge the State Services Commission is implementing an educational programme aimed at promoting ethical sensitivity and awareness among public servants.
Chief executives share with the State Services Commissioner the responsibility to provide a lead in matters of ethics, and to model good conduct. They also share a responsibility to promote and enhance high ethical values and standards, and good administrative practice, throughout the Public Service and their spheres of influence.
All public servants have a broad responsibility to uphold the law, and to be honest, fair, and responsive in all their activities. With the new management autonomy and relative freedom from centralised controls goes an onus to use discretion appropriately. Usually that will mean being alert to the public interest, and the implications of the concept of public trust.
The new Public Service approach to management, and managerial performance gives Chief Executives increased freedom to manage their departments, within an accountability framework. In these circumstances it would be inappropriate, and inconsistent, for a central agency to issue a set of categorical statements, or rules, about what constitutes correct behaviour. Rather, it is more appropriate that guidance be provided on Public Service principles and conventions, and to good professional and administrative practice.
Ethics, by their very nature, are concerned with making choices, of using discretion. The aim of the integrity-based approach is to provide public servants with the basis on which decisions might be made and trust that they will apply sound principles accordingly.
The New Zealand Public Service Vision Statement sets outs the principles and values the Public Service will adhere to. According to the Statement, the Public Service will:
These principles and values need to be reinforced by appropriate incentives, and recognised in the performance management systems of each department. That supposes an integrative approach.
The nature of the roles and relationships between public servants and politicians (especially Ministers) is well traversed in the Principles, Conventions and Practice guidance series. The publication also describes the relationship of the Public Service to Parliament, to Government, to the law, and to the public.
The Official Information Act 1982 repealed the Official Secrets Act 1951 and reversed the principle of secrecy of government-held information. The 1982 legislation stresses the twin objectives of participation and availability (in the decision-making processes of government, and of information), promotes public accountability, reinforces the constitutional principles associated with an open democracy, and articulates fundamental principles guiding proper attitudes and behaviour about official information.
The Government has recently considered a report that it commissioned to assess 'whistleblowing’ - primarily to assess whether there is a need for the Government to provide a process which would allow concerns about maladministration, misuse of public funds, corruption or illegality to be raised, and if so, whether it would be necessary to enact legislation to establish an effective scheme.
The review concluded:
- reduce impediments to employees disclosing serious wrongdoing; and
- enhance public confidence in public institutions;
- underpin and reinforce the existing statutory and ethical obligations of probity and integrity within the public sector.
The review recommended that public sector organisations be required to implement internal processes for reporting and addressing public interest issues within the organisation. Introducing such processes would be discretionary for the private sector. Statutory protection is recommended for whistleblowers among both public and private sector employees.
The Government has indicated an intention to give effect to the main findings of the review. Legislation is likely to be passed in 1996.
As explained above, the State Services Commission has a lead role in the promotion and management of ethics, but the preference is to leave the initiative for much of the training and education, and good modelling, to individual chief executives.
The State Services Commission is currently working through the issues of how to promote ethics across the Public Service. This will involve considerable consultation and communication with departments. The aim is to make the consultation process as wide-ranging as possible, and to be inclusive of a wide cross-section of views.
In the New Zealand Public Service environment it is vital that ethics comes to be seen as a natural part of the "ethos". That will require the principles and values to be given operational relevance - to be built into the management systems and "psyche" of the Public Service.
Remuneration and reward systems - indeed, the whole gambit of human resource strategy - need to be informed and enriched by an ethicaldimension. It may also mean that ethics needs to be introduced more consciously into machinery of government considerations, and into policy analysis and development.
Considerable effort in designing accountability systems, exploring the concept of maintaining departmental capability now and in the future, and enhancing the collective interest of Government, has been going on within the Public Service for some time now. Again, there is room for "the ethics perspective" to be given more attention and focus as a way of providing a valuable contribution to these pursuits.
The recent constitutional, political and administrative changes in government, the opportunities for enhanced citizen participation, new interpretations of State sector accountability, and improved access to information all impact on an understanding of the role and function of the institutions of governance. It is therefore likely that the Public Service of the future will be characterised by an even greater concern for giving expression to such concepts as equity and fairness, and that managers will come to recognise more and more that ethical management is an important resource that contributes to the working of their departments.
In this new environment, the management of ethics takes on a new meaning - the focus will not solely be on policing and monitoring, but increasingly on the promotion of integrity in the Public Service, on ethics education, and on raising awareness about and understanding of the ethical values that underpin public service.
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Last updated: 07/02/01
