Public Agencies whose AIA Grade Improved Also Showed Clear Improvement in their Integrity Level

- Metropolitan/provincial offices of education > upper-level local governments > public service-related organizations in order of AIA performance results -

- The result of the 2019 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment of 270 public agencies released -

January 28, 2020

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

The ‘2019 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment (AIA)’ results showed that the more active anti-corruption initiative efforts public agencies put in, the greater the increase in their score of the ‘Public Agency Integrity Assessment’ was than the increase in the integrity score of the entire agencies.

The 68 agencies with elevated ratings in the 2019 AIA showed a 0.12 point increase in their 2019 integrity score, which is 0.05 points higher than the point increase shown by the entire agencies. By type of public agency, metropolitan and provincial offices of education earned the highest integrity score of 87 points, followed by upper-level local governments, public service-related organizations and central administrative agencies.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) conducted the 2019 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment (AIA) for 270 target public agencies and released the result thereof on January 28.

The AIA has been conducted every year since 2002 by the ACRC with the aim to evaluate and support voluntary anti-corruption efforts made by public agencies of various level, thereby improving the level of integrity in the public sector.

The ACRC evaluated the performance of anti-corruption policy initiatives of various public agencies carried out from November 2018 to October 2019 across the following seven assessment sections: (1) Establishment of Anti-Corruption Policy Implementation Plan, (2) Expansion of Participation in Anti-Corruption Policy, (3) Establishment of Institutional Infrastructure for Anti-Corruption, (4) Removal and Reduction of Corruption-Causing Factors, (5) Operation of Anti-Corruption System, (6) Anti-Corruption Policy Achievement, (7) Efforts to Disseminate Anti-Corruption Best Policy Practices, and classified the public agencies into the performance groups from Grade 1 to 5, with Grade 1 being the best performing group.

【2019 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment Consolidated Results】

The 68 public agencies that improved their grade in the 2019 AIA also saw their integrity score increase by 0.12 points, which is a greater improvement than that achieved by the entire public agencies that showed a 0.07 point increase in the 2019 Integrity Assessment.

This shows that rigorous anti-corruption efforts put in by these public agencies have had a positive impact on the improvement in their overall integrity score, in particular on the formation of positive perceptions among internal employees of their agencies’ integrity level.

※ 2019 integrity score improvement: comprehensive integrity (+0.07 points), external integrity (+0.12 points), internal integrity (△0.08 points)

< Integrity Assessment Results of Agencies whose AIA Grade Improved (68 Agencies)>

The total average score of 270 public agencies subject to the 2019 AIA stood at 82.5 points. Metropolitan and provincial offices of education earned the highest score (87 points), followed by upper-level local governments (85.3 points), public service-related organizations (85.1 points), and central administrative agencies (83.1 points). However, the 2019 AIA clearly showed the need for more rigorous anti-corruption initiatives to be undertaken by lower-level local governments (77.2 points), universities (74.5 points), and public health organizations (68.6 points).

<The 2019 AIA Scores by Agency Type>

Among 7 assessment sections, the ‘Operation of Anti-Corruption System,’ including through promotion of anti-corruption training, achieved the highest score (96.8 points), while the ‘Efforts to Disseminate Anti-Corruption Best Policy Practices,’ such as activities of spreading a culture of integrity, scored the lowest (76.1 points).

The number of best-performing public agencies that received Grade 1 and 2 was 35 and 77, respectively, taking up 41.5% (112 agencies) of the total public agencies evaluated in the 2019 AIA.

The number of public agencies that maintained Grade 1 or 2 for the past two consecutive years was 66, including the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Gyeonggi Provincial Government, Yeongdeungpo-gu Office (Seoul), Gangwon Provincial Office of Education, and Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service.

The number of agencies that received better grades than in 2018 amounted to 78 (31.1%), and among them, 26 agencies (10.4%) saw their grades improve greatly by more than two notches. The public agency which improved by 4 notches was Chungchengnam-do Provincial Government, and two public agencies, including the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission improved by 3 notches, while 23 agencies, including the Ministry of Employment and Labor improved by 2 notches.

【The Results by Assessment Sections】

The 2019 AIA results showed that public agencies of various levels have made a variety of anti-corruption efforts, including effective promotion of anti-corruption and integrity policies.

(Removal and reduction of corruption-causing factors) public agencies strived to enhance their integrity level by putting concentrated efforts to improve their corruption-prone areas, including through an in-depth analysis of the Integrity Assessment and active efforts to find areas requiring further improvement as well as causes for their integrity levels to have deteriorated. More specifically, among 270 agencies, 269 agencies (99.6%) have discovered and improved their respective corruption-causing factors

In addition, they made efforts to address root causes for corruption by removing corruption-causing factors in statutes (335 factors), ordinances (137 factors) and bylaws (368 factors), etc. that are closely connected to the livelihood of the general public.

(Establishment of corruption control system) Among 134 public agencies of various levels, 116 agencies (86.6%) have come up with measures to tackle hiring irregularities, and among 270 public agencies, 237 agencies (87.8%) have established preventive measures against improper assistance in overseas business trips, in order to prevent recurrence of corruption and irregularities that have raised the ire of the public or provoked a sense of loss.

Furthermore, they have concentrated their efforts to improve a number of institutions causing public sector corruption and remove deeply-entrenched unfair practices through implementing the 2,566 recommendations of the ACRC for institutional improvement.

(Fostering a culture of integrity) public agencies have taken anti-corruption measures congenial to the public sentiment by signing the Integrity Pact in which people from all walks of life, including those from the private and public sectors and civil society (200 out of 207 target agencies), and implementing the actions under the Pact.

Moreover, the Integrity Ombudsman System has been also actively operated by 242 public agencies to prevent corruption and foster a culture of integrity and fairness from the perspectives of outside experts not involved in the public agencies, and among them, 220 agencies (90.9%) have accepted the requests of the ACRC for audit and institutional improvement.

The Integrity Ombudsman refers to a corruption control system under which an outside expert monitors or investigates areas of corruption risks in a public agency.

(Reinforcement of anti-corruption capacity) integrity capacity to build an organizational culture of integrity and fairness has been reinforced by encouraging high-ranking officials, etc. to actively participate in the integrity training programs. The ratio of completion of integrity training courses reached 89.4% for high-ranking officials and 88.6% for general public officials.

On top of this, 265 agencies (98.1%) carried out preemptive inspections of the implementation status of the code of conduct on more than 1,218 occasions in total during the period prone to corruption. Through these inspections, they removed the possibility for the violation of the code of conduct, consolidating the foundation for the conduct of integrity.

(Dissemination of anti-corruption initiatives) public agencies of various levels have actively come up with effective initiatives worth dissemination and shared them with other public agencies.

Along with this, the Public-Private Consultative Councils for Transparent Society have been established in 17 metropolitan and provincial regions to lay an institutional foundation for the anti-corruption governance. In addition, 267 public agencies (98.9%) have conducted 11,277 activities, and 42 activities on average to spread a culture of integrity in connection with their areas of duties.

[Direction of the 2020 Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment]

The ACRC will focus the 2020 AIA on reflecting changing policy environment and higher standards of the people and encouraging voluntary efforts to disseminate anti-corruption culture in the public sector.

To this end, the ACRC will revise the scoring scale and criteria for the AIA indicators to focus more on assessing the effectiveness of anti-corruption initiatives than on evaluating the efforts of public agencies, in order for these agencies to create substantial outcomes through their initiatives.

In addition, the same incentives will continue to be given as last year, such as organizing a reward ceremony for the officials in charge of the anti-corruption tasks that were recognized for outstanding performances in the 2019 AIA as well as the public agency to which they belong and conducting an overseas study program for these officials. And as part of the efforts to actively utilize the anti-corruption capacity of high-performing agencies, the officials who distinguished themselves in helping their agencies receive outstanding results on the 2019 AIA will be recommended as lecturers of the integrity education courses at the Anti-Corruption Training Institute of Korea to introduce their exemplary AIA cases.

On top of this, the best practices identified in the 2019 AIA will be actively disseminated and shared through the Clean Portal, etc. to support the agencies that received poor results on the 2019 AIA in making voluntary efforts to strengthen their anti-corruption capacity. The users of the Clean Portal will be able to search outstanding anti-corruption initiatives online so that those exemplary cases can be utilized more broadly.

Director General Im Yoon Ju of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the ACRC said, “Public agencies will need to strive to implement sustainable and effective anti-corruption initiatives based on accurate analysis of corruption-prone areas, and as the anti-corruption will and efforts of the heads or high-level officials of agencies are very important, they need to take the lead in implementing those initiatives.”