The ACRC announced the results of the 2015 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment (AIA) that was conducted on 268 public organizations, including central administrative agencies, metropolitan governments, offices of education, and public service-related organizations.

The ACRC conducts the AIA to evaluate the anti-corruption efforts and performances of public organizations, while carrying out the Integrity Assessment which measures integrity levels of public organizations at all levels by surveying citizens and public employees.

The 2015 AIA was conducted to evaluate the anti-corruption efforts and performances made by 268 public organizations (newly including 12 public medical institutions such as national/public hospitals) from November 2014 to October 2015. It focused on securing the capability to implement anti-corruption & integrity policies; spreading a culture of integrity through the implementation of the code of conduct and high-ranking officials' commitment; and improving anti-corruption initiatives in line with the characteristics of each organization.



It was analyzed that the active anti-corruption efforts of public organizations closely correlated with the positive results of the Integrity Assessment, since 75% of the 77 public organizations with an improved grade in the AIA also showed an improvement in the Integrity Assessment conducted in 2015.

This AIA is composed of 6 sections, and the average score for the target organizations was 85.1 points out of 100, a 1.9 point increase year on year.

By type of organization, public organizations, offices of education, and metropolitan governments showed good results, while city and county governments, universities, and public medical institutions showed a need for more improvement.

The best organizations by type were the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Statistics Korea, Busan Metropolitan City Government, Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service, and Korea District Heating Corporation. A total of 9 organizations increased by more than 3 grades compared to the previous year, including the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, and Chungcheongnam-do Provincial Government.

Best practices by assessment section

Establishment of anti-corruption infrastructure
   -Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning: Organized and held regular meetings of integrity supporters, and systemized the participation of employees in the areas of licensing, approval, contracting, expenditure, inspection, etc.
   -Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport: Conducted anti-corruption initiative assessments for its affiliated organizations according to their characteristics, and reflected the results in personnel management and performance evaluations

Improvement of policy transparency and reliability
   -Rural Development Administration: Publicized 100% of its internal inspection results and presented problems identified through the audit, follow-up actions, and best practices in the publicized report

Removal and improvement of corruption-causing factors
   -Ministry of the Interior: Made efforts to prevent corruption in the personnel affairs of local governments by setting down the disciplinary rules for local public officials as a decree of the Ministry and operating the online bulletin board for reporting misconduct related to personnel affairs
   -KEPCO KDN, Korea Teachers Pension, Korea Power Exchange & Naju City Government: Led the spread of a culture of integrity through the local community by jointly holding the "Bitgaram Integrity Festival" in Naju

Improvement of integrity awareness & culture in public service sector
   -Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation: Made efforts to improve the integrity of high-ranking officials by operating comprehensive action plans such as diagnosing corruption risks, making job-integrity statements, holding integrity resolution meetings, and strengthening integrity training

Prevention of corruption & promotion of whistleblowing
   -Eunpyeong-gu District Office: Made preemptive responses to the change in anti-corruption policies by reflecting the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act to be enforced in September 2016 in its code of conduct

The ACRC will recommend the organizations and public officials in charge with good results in the AIA for government prizes, and provide them with incentives such as anti-corruption training abroad. It will also provide support to those with poor results by holding briefing sessions to explain the assessment results.

Following the introduction of the AIA to Indonesia, Mongolia, and Thailand, the ACRC is working with the UNDP Seoul Policy Center and the Government Inspectorate of Vietnam to help introduce the system to Vietnam. The ACRC and UNDP co-organized a workshop on the AIA last December for the concerned Vietnamese public officials and academic experts, and recently published an English guidebook on the AIA.