All public organizations required to disclose their Integrity Assessment results

On December 7, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC) released the results of 2016 Integrity Assessment on 606 public organizations. The ACRC conducts the Integrity Assessment on public organizations every year.

Integrity levels of public organizations are measured by comprehensively taking into account the results of surveys on citizens who experienced public service, employees of public organizations and experts about their experience and perception of corruption in the organizations subject to the assessment, along with the occurrences of corruption cases.

Comprehensive integrity level is calculated by adding weighted scores from survey results on external/internal integrity levels and policy customer evaluation, and by deducting points for corruption cases and actions undermining confidence.

A total of 232,400 people participated in the survey this year. Among them are 156,700 citizens who experienced public service of the organizations subject to the Assessment (external integrity assessment), 54,800 employees of public organizations (internal integrity assessment), and 20,900 experts from academia and civic groups, stakeholders, local residents, and school parents (policy customer evaluation). The ACRC conducted surveys for four months from August to November 2016 via phone call, smart phone, and e-mail.

Comprehensive integrity level

In 2016, comprehensive integrity level of public organizations recorded 7.85 on average, on a scale of 1 to 10, down 0.04 year-on-year. This is attributable to a significant decrease in internal integrity level by 0.18 points, as external integrity level went slightly up by 0.02 to 8.04. In other words, citizens with experience of public service believed that the integrity level of public organizations as a whole remained the same, while employees of public organizations responded that integrity levels of their own organizations fell short of their expectations.

By type of organizations, comprehensive integrity level of public service-related organizations was the highest with 8.17 points, followed by lower-level local governments (7.67), central administrative agencies (7.61), offices of education (7.53), and metropolitan and provincial governments (7.18).

Among central administrative agencies, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (up 0.55 YoY) and the Ministry of National Defense (up 0.45 YoY) made a huge progress. The latter has been strengthening monitoring activities of corruption-prone areas such as military, facilities, and information system. Among lower-level local governments, South Chungcheong Province, which is committed to improving its integrity, saw its grade increase by more than two stages. South Chungcheong Province and Gangnam District were respectively ranked 2nd and 1st in terms of integrity level among the organizations in the same group.

Among central administrative agencies, Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Government Legislation; among local governments, South Gyeongsang Province, Changwon City of South Gyeongsang Province, Jeungpyeong County of North Chungcheong Province, and Gangnam Distric of Seoul; among offices of education, the Office of Education of Jeju Special Self-governing Province; among public service-related organizations, National Health Insurance Service, Korea Midland Power Corporation, Animal Products Quality Evaluation, Incheon Port Authority, and Public Officials Benefit Association were assessed to have the highest integrity levels.

External integrity level

(Improper solicitation) With the enforcement of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act on September 28, 2016, the question “Do you believe that public officials might improperly handle their duties according to solicitations made by a stakeholder or a third party?” was added. In response, citizens who experienced public service of the organization concerned answered that institutions were vulnerable to improper solicitations in the following order: lower-level local governments (8.70 points), central administrative agencies (8.82), metropolitan and provincial governments (8.84), offices of education (8.88), and public service-related organizations (9.33).

(Direct experience and perception of corruption) Over the past twelve months, 1.8% of citizens had direct experience of providing financial advantages, entertainment or convenience to public organizations, slightly up from 1.7% of the previous year. Such an increase in direct experience seems to have resulted from a greater awareness of the prohibition of improper solicitation and financial advantages right before the implementation of the Act. An increased number of citizens perceived that the offer of financial advantages, entertainment, and convenience is not a socially acceptable practice but corruption. Meanwhile, indirect experience of corruption that respondents learned from their relatives or colleagues was 0.8%, same as last year's.

(Integrity level by duty) A total of 2,441 public duties of 606 institutions were subject to external integrity assessment this year. Among them, contract management and subsidy support were assessed to have relatively higher integrity levels. On the contrary, inspection by central administrative agencies, guidance/regulation by public service-related organizations, construction supervision by both lower-level and upper-level local governments were vulnerable to corruption, with lower integrity levels.

Internal integrity level

As for internal integrity level, integrity culture index including organizational culture and corruption prevention measures; and work integrity index including personnel management, budget execution, and unreasonable work orders showed poor results, with 0.17 and 0.18 points of decrease year-on-year, respectively. The percentage of experience by employees of public organizations of provision of financial advantages, entertainment and convenience; of illegal or unreasonable budget execution; and of unreasonable work orders recorded 0.4%, 7.7%, and 7.5%, respectively, up 0.1%p, 2.9%p, and 1.3%p year-on-year, respectively.

All these factors contributed to decreasing this year's internal integrity level by 0.18 points from last year's 8.00 to 7.82. The decrease may stem from higher sensitivity toward corruption, as employees have higher expectations about integrity and what was perceived as normal practices before is now seen as corruption.

Deduction from corruption cases

When there is an occurrence of corruption in a public organization, points will be deducted from the integrity score of the organization in order to improve the validity of the Integrity Assessment. In 2016, 482 corruption cases of 187 organizations were reflected into the results of the Integrity Assessment. Among them are 397 cases of 131 administrative agencies (central/local governments, and offices of education) and 85 cases of 56 public service-related organizations, showing a continued trend of decrease in the number of agencies and cases subject to deduction of points. For reference, 579 corruption cases of 198 agencies were subject to deduction in 2015.

As for the type of corruption cases, the offer and acceptance of money and other financial advantages most frequently took place (49.6%), followed by the offer and acceptance of entertainment (16.4%), embezzlement/misuse of public funds (13.7%), and abuse of power (7.7%). The proportion of the offer and acceptance of money and other financial advantages went down by 5%p, while that of abuse of power and the use of budget for other purposes went up by 2.3%p, respectively. Such statistics demonstrate that the proportion of each type of corruption cases is changing.

Policy direction of 2017

With the revision of the Act on Anti-Corruption and the Establishment and Operation of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on September 30, public organizations subject to the Integrity Assessment should publish the Assessment results on their websites within 2 weeks for more than one month from the date of publication.

The ACRC plans to monitor the publication of Integrity Assessment results by each organization and reflect it into the Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment. By doing so, the Commission will improve the interest of public agencies and the general public in integrity issues while ensuring the compliance with the new legal obligations.

In addition, the ACRC will make continuous efforts so that the Integrity Assessment can be used as an effective tool to catalyze anti-corruption activities of each agency. It will also provide customized support such as integrity consulting to organizations with relatively poor results.