Integrity Level of Public Institutions on the Rise for Two Consecutive Years, with Corruption Experiences in Public Services Diminishing

Comprehensive Integrity Score in 2016, 2017 and 2018 Stood at 7.85, 7.94 and 8.12 Points, Respectively

December 5, 2018

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

It has been found that after the implementation of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act and the launch of the New Administration, the integrity level of public institutions has increased and people’s corruption experiences in public services have dwindled as well.

The results of integrity assessment of 612 public institutions announced on 5 Dec by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) showed that the average score of comprehensive integrity of said institutions went up by 0.18 points year over year to 8.12 points.

< Changes in Integrity Scores from 2012 to 2018>

The external and internal integrity and policy customer evaluation have all seen improvements, and particularly the scores for the external integrity and policy customer evaluation administered to outside service users (i.e. citizens) have significantly increased.

Compared to last year, the average score for external integrity evaluated by citizens who have had first-hand experience with public services rose by 0.22 points to 8.35 points. The average scores for internal integrity assessed by employees of public institutions and policy customer evaluation by experts and duty-related parties, etc. were increased by 0.06 and 0.32 points from last year to 7.72 and 7.61 points, respectively.

<Score Comparison by Each Component between 2017 and 2018>

Corruption experience rates among the respondents in the integrity survey have been consistently decreasing.

Out of the citizens surveyed on the external integrity, 0.7 per cent (1020 citizens), which is down 0.3 percentage points from last year, said that they have offered or been requested to offer gratuities and entertainment, etc. to public officials in the course of receiving administrative services.

Among the employees of public institutions surveyed, the employees responding that they have experienced corruption related to personnel management affairs took up 0.5 per cent, up 0.1 percentage points from last year, whereas those who answered that they have experienced corruption associated with the budget execution and improper orders given by superiors fell by 3.4 and 3.0 percentage points, compared to last year to 5.1 and 5.7 per cent, respectively.

The ratio of policy customers such as experts and stakeholders, etc. who answered they have experienced corruption during the delivery of public services decreased to 2.1 per cent, down 0.7 percentage points from last year.

Notwithstanding that the scope of external and internal integrity survey measuring corruption experiences (for internal integrity, those related to personnel management) was expanded in order to mitigate the burden of response and improve the level of reliability, the corruption experiences rate still went down or remained similar to that of last year, suggesting that there has been a substantial improvement.

The ACRC will prepare an “Integrity Map of Public Institutions” reflecting said survey result, and will make it publicly available on its website. It will also have each public institution assessed this time disclose their respective integrity scores on their websites.

The “Integrity Map of Public Institutions” is to be designed in a way that people can compare the integrity levels of various public institutions at a glance by looking at colors differentiated by grade/tier on the map or graph.

Furthermore, in a bid to enhance the reliability and validity of the assessment results of next year, feedbacks from relevant institutions and experts will feed into the process of selecting target public institutions and works and improving the measurement model, etc.

The Director General of Anti-Corruption Bureau at the ACRC said that “the result of the integrity assessment disclosed this time carries great significance in that there were big increases in the scores given by citizens and experts, etc. who are customers of public institutions. The ACRC will continue to support voluntary anti-corruption efforts made by public institutions through identifying, spreading and promoting the best practices and cases of integrity improvement.”

He also called for public institutions to “boost their voluntary efforts to put a check on corruption by establishing effective corruption-preventive systems and actively conducting an internal audit to stave off or detect corruption cases, which will contribute to improving corruption-prone areas in their institutions and increasing their integrity levels.”