Survey of the Integrity and Conduct of State servants released

11 October 2007

The State Services Commissioner, Mark Prebble, today released the results of a survey into the integrity and conduct of New Zealand’s State servants.

The independent survey, conducted by the Ethics Resource Centre, assessed the standards of integrity and conduct among State servants and found that there are some areas that can be improved upon.

"Only last week Transparency International again rated New Zealand equal first place in the global survey of perceptions of corruption in the public sector. We are all proud of that, but it is more important to meet the standards New Zealanders expect. We will not be complacent and we will do everything we can to maintain and improve upon that good record.

"This survey, and the others that will follow, is an important step in an ongoing process of monitoring and managing levels of integrity and good conduct in the State Services. These surveys will from time to time highlight issues that we need to address, and we can’t afford to pretend otherwise. What is critical is that we identify the problems and move to fix them," Mark Prebble said.

The survey, of 4,642 State servants from a range of State Services agencies, considered six elements that are essential to support integrity and ethical behaviour. Some areas of concern identified in the survey were:

• 33 per cent of State servants reported observing misconduct in the past year. 6 per cent of respondents believed that these incidents were breaches of the law.
• 36 per cent of respondents reported seeing breaches involving abusive or intimidating behaviour.
• Only 49 per cent of respondents believe their senior managers keep their promises and commitments.
"We know from international studies that we need sound systems in place to support integrity and good conduct. This survey looked at our systems and showed us that we have high understanding, that we have good training but that it can be improved, and that we need to do more work in terms of our reporting, follow up, leadership, and communication.

"We have shone a hard light on this, now we need to move to deal with it. SSC has a specialist team to work with agencies on their integrity and conduct and we will be actively working with chief executives, boards and senior leaders over the coming months to ensure that these issues are adequately addressed.

"The new Code of Conduct launched in June is an important tool for establishing a common standard of behaviour across the State Services and I expect that the standard will be met," Mark Prebble said.

A summary of the findings and the full report are available of the State Services Commission website: www.ssc.govt.nz/survey-report-summary.

ENDS

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