PSA MEDIA RELEASE October 11, 2007 For Immediate Use

Integrity Survey Confirms NZ's Public Service As Least Corrupt

The PSA says a survey assessing the integrity of New Zealand's state sector workers confirms their ranking as the least corrupt in the world but does show the need to improve some aspects of workplace behaviour.

The survey findings were released today by the State Services Commission. It commissioned the survey as part of its goal to have world class state services serving the government of the day and meeting the needs of New Zealanders.

It was conducted by the Ethics Resource Center, based in Washington DC, and completed by 4642 state servants working at 38 state agencies. The findings compare their integrity and ethical behaviour with government workers in the United States.

"The survey shows that there's higher levels of serious misconduct among American government workers than state sector workers in New Zealand," says Richard Wagstaff, National Secretary of the PSA, which has 55,000 members working in the state sector and local government.

Serious misconduct includes offences such as theft, falsification and misrepresentation of records and reports and misuse of a government agency's information.

"We're not surprised that serious misconduct is higher in the United States public service than in ours," says Richard Wagstaff. "This fits with a Transparency International survey released last month that shows New Zealand, Denmark and Finland have the least corrupt public services out of 180 countries."

"But we do acknowledge that there are areas of workplace behaviour involving our public servants where there's clearly room for improvement," says Richard Wagstaff. "We're concerned that a third of the state sector workers surveyed had observed breaches of conduct."

The most frequently observed breach of workplace conduct is abusive or intimidating behaviour, also known as workplace bullying. This was followed by improper use of the internet or email and lying to other workers.

"Action is needed to address this misconduct, particularly workplace bullying and lying among staff," says Richard Wagstaff. "This is completely unacceptable and state sector management needs to take responsibility for ensuring this doesn't occur."

"It's clear from the survey that there needs to be more integrity and conduct training in the state sector," says Richard Wagstaff. "That's shown by the fact that 45% of the staff don't even know if their agency provides training in this area."

The PSA is also concerned about barriers to reporting inappropriate workplace behaviour. 43% of state servants, who observed misconduct, did not report it. That's because they didn't believe corrective action would be taken, that their report would be treated anonymously, or they feared retaliation. There was also a low level of awareness of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000, known as the 'whistleblower legislation' among staff in the wider state sector such as district health boards.

"We can't stop inappropriate workplace behaviour if staff don't report it," says Richard Wagstaff. "All workers in the state sector must feel they can safely report misconduct and that action will be taken as a result."

The PSA applauds the SSC for commissioning the survey as the union is also committed to having world class state services that meet the needs of New Zealanders. "The survey provides valuable information that the commission, state agencies and the PSA can use to continue improving our state services," says Richard Wagstaff.

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