Public Service Regulations – Part 3 – Anti-corruption and ethics management
22. A Head of Department shall—
- analyse ethics and corruption risks as part of the department’s system of risk management;
- develop and implement an ethics management strategy that prevents and deters unethical conduct and acts of corruption.
An ethics risk assessment is a well-planned activity that each department should undertake to understand their specific ethics risk profile.
During a risk assessment the department should not only focus on its ethics risks, but also its ethics opportunities. These opportunities are the benefits that an improved culture might bring to the department. It might include improved trust in the department, a more attractive working environment for skilled professionals, better staff retention, and, ultimately, improved service delivery.
There might already be things that the department is doing very well that it can build on to improve its reputation. These should also be seen as opportunities that need to be harnessed.
Typical ethics risks in public sector environments include conflicts of interest, maladministration, corruption, being unresponsive to the public, absenteeism, unprofessional behaviour, and abuse of government resources.
A risk profile allows departments to understand such risk areas better. For example – in which part of the department is the issue most pronounced, and what are the contributing factors?
The profile is not just dependent on the operational activities of the department, but also on the organisational culture.
For example – two separate health departments in two provinces can have similar operational activities, but their risk profiles can differ. There may be significant issues around theft of medicine in one province, while staff absenteeism or non-performance may be more critical in the other. These risks may be made worse by the fact that employees think there is no accountability for perpetrators, or that there is a culture of managers interfering with procedures.
Departments should consider their operational areas and how the organisational culture impacts on delivery in those areas. Understanding the risk profile allows the department to design much more structured interventions.
A structured ethics risk assessment should be conducted every three to five years.
How do we determine our risk profile?
Desktop analysis
For most departments there is already a lot of information available that they can assess to get a sense of their ethics risks profile. Some sources of information are:
- Auditor-General reports
- Internal audit reports (Where are controls being bypassed? Where do we have governance problems?)
- Hotline reports (What are the most common reports? Which units are implicated?)
- Records of disciplinary hearings and grievance procedures (What are the most common issues?)
- Media reports (For what reason has the department been in the media? Which of these issues were positive and which were negative?)
These reports will, however, only tell you about issues that have already been uncovered. There may be many other issues, specifically on organisational culture, which you would not find here. For this reason it is important to also speak to stakeholders.
Stakeholder engagement
We learn the most about a department’s ethics risks from people who have dealings with the department – in other words, the stakeholders.
These can be:
- internal stakeholders, who are predominantly employees; or
- external stakeholders, such as the communities or the public we serve, the relevant parliamentary portfolio committee, contractors and suppliers.
External stakeholders will be able to speak of their positive and negative experiences of the department, while employees will be better suited to speak of the inner workings of the department and the organisational culture.
These discussions with stakeholders should take place in a structured way. Good techniques for stakeholder engagement are focus group interviews, personal interviews and survey questionnaires.
The findings of the stakeholder engagement should be captured in an ethics risk profile of the department. This ethics risk profile will not only inform the ethics strategy of the organisation, but also serves as a benchmark against which an organisation could measure its ethics performance in future.
Additional Resources
To get a better understanding of typical public sector ethics risks, have a look at the latest edition of the Public Sector Ethics Survey – available on The Ethics Institute’s website.
For a detailed view on how to conduct an ethics risk assessment, have a look at TEI’s Ethics Risk Handbook.
The department should formulate an ethics management strategy and plan in response to the ethics risk assessment. An ethics management strategy is a document that sets out the broad approach that the department will take in improving the ethical culture, while the plan sets out the detail of how this will be achieved.
The outcomes of the ethics risk profile should inform the strategy. In other words, the department should consider where they currently find themselves by asking questions such as: What is the current organisational culture, and what contributes to that culture? Which positive elements need to be harnessed? Which practices, behaviours or attitudes pose ethics risks and need to be proactively managed? Which units in the department are most susceptible to negative ethics risk?
A strategy should then be formulated to address those concerns.
It should include:
- Proactive elements for building a strong organisational culture of professional ethics, and preventing misconduct (or other ethics risks); and
- Reactive elements for detecting, investigating and resolving misconduct.
The strategy will be compiled by the ethics office, deliberated by the ethics committee, and will on their recommendation be approved by the HoD.
The strategy will give a broad outline of the focus areas and activities of the ethics programme. To ensure that the strategy is implemented the ethics office will also need to develop an ethics management plan (or implementation plan) that:
- Sets measurable targets;
- Assigns specific roles and responsibilities;
- Provides timeframes and target dates; and
- Indicate what human, financial and other resources are required.
The ethics management plan can be used to monitor progress of implementation, and should form the basis for reporting on ethics performance, as part of annual reporting. The department should also try to identify specific indicators to see whether the ethics programme is effective.
In some organisations the ethics management plan may form part of the fraud and corruption prevention plan. While it is acceptable to include a reference to ethics in this plan, it is discouraged for your entire ethics programme to sit there. The risk in this regard is that ethics is limited to fraud and corruption, and the focus on positive and professional ethics is reduced or removed.
Code
Having defined the ethics strategy for the department, it is important to also clearly set out:
- Our ethical identity as an organisation. In other words, what kind of ethical organisation do we want to be, and what principles should guide our actions and decisions? This would be done in a values statement (which is also sometimes called a code of ethics). It is typically based on the organisation’s values and is intended to inspire and shape the culture of the organisation.
- Behavioural guidelines. In other words, what behaviour is acceptable and what is not acceptable. This is done in a code of conduct. It is generally directional, or rules-based.
These are both critical components of any ethics management programme. Together, they communicate the organisation’s ethics standards and expectations and help employees navigate ethical dilemmas, understand organisational expectations, and act in ways that are both principled and compliant.
A values statement is like the ‘constitution’ of the organisation.
It sets out a framework of values, or principles to guide employees’ decisions. It is usually short, easy to remember and allows for employees to use discretion in their decision-making. On the downside, it is vague about specific behaviours required, and therefore difficult to enforce.
At a national level, the Constitution sets the spirit and foundation for all other legislation. In the same way, the code should set the spirit for all organisational policies.
| Values are deeply held beliefs about what is good, important or desirable – for example: respect for others, fairness, and honesty. |
The Batho Pele principles can be considered a values-based approach to guide the behaviour of all public servants. You can watch this NSG video for more on these principles:
A code of conduct is generally longer, because it lists a number of specific rules that employees should follow. It will therefore be clearer about specific behavioural requirements, but will not allow for much discretion. Because it is so clear it will be more enforceable, and easier to use in disciplinary cases.
It is also possible to combine values- and rules-based elements in an organisation’s code, using the strengths of each. Departments have to consider what the best approach would be for them, based on their challenges and ethics strategies.
Chapter 2 of the Public Service Regulations (2016) sets out the Code of Conduct for the Public Service. This is predominantly a rules-based code which applies to all public service departments. It outlines the standards of professional and ethical conduct expected from public servants.
Because it has to apply to all departments it does not necessarily deal with issues specific to each department. It is clear that educators will face different ethical challenges than police officers or employees working for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
(As the employment and service conditions for teachers, police officers, members of the judiciary, members of the South African National Defence Force, and intelligence service members are governed by separate legislation, rather than just the Public Service Act, they would also have their own code of conduct in terms of their applicable legislation.)
Departments may therefore supplement the Public Service Code in line with their ethics risk profile.
Supplementing the Code of Conduct for the Public Service
Departments can supplement the Public Service Code in a number of ways. Here are a few examples:
- A department may find that the Public Service Code covers their risks sufficiently. However, merely adopting this code does not indicate that the department has set themselves a department-specific ethics vision or identity. For this reason it is recommended that departments at least develop a values statement that speaks to their mandate and ethics risk profile. This will not replace the Public Service Code, but will form the values-based component to supplement it.
- A department may find that besides the values statement there are a few areas that are not covered in the Public Service Code, and they may add some further behavioural prescriptions to the code.
- A department may find it a better option to develop a code that integrates values and rules in one document. It may align with the provisions of the Public Service Code, but it could have a totally different structure.
Whichever approach is taken, there should always be clarity on the code’s standing in relation to the Public Service Code.
In local government the following codes apply:
The Code of Conduct for Councillors is contained in Schedule 7 of the Municipal Structures Act (Amended 2021).
The Code of Conduct for Municipal Staff Members is contained in the Municipal Systems Act (Act 32 of 2000).
Both codes have an introductory section on general conduct (which happens to be in section 2 of each code).
This section is probably the most important of the code, as it sets out the spirit in which councillors and officials need to do their work. Whatever you do in the municipality must align with these principles.
There are two principles that appear in both codes. These are:
Councillors and staff members must:
- perform the functions of office in good faith, honestly and in a transparent manner; and
- at all times act in the best interest of the municipality and in such a way that the credibility and integrity of the municipality are not compromised.
There are some concepts that we need to look at here.
A very important concept is that of good faith. Wikipedia states that good faith is “a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction”. In other words, I am acting with pure intentions and not selfish ones. I am not misrepresenting anything.
The second principle basically states in whose interest I must be acting when I do my job. It is very clear that councillors and staff members must, at all times, act in the best interests of the municipality. So, whenever there is a conflict between personal, political or factional interests and that of the municipality, they have to act in the best interest of the municipality.
They must also act in such a way that the credibility and integrity of the municipality is not compromised. Therefore, their actions must not reflect negatively on the municipality. They must act in a way that will cause the community to trust the municipality more, not less.
All of these principles under general conduct are enforceable, as they fall within the Code of Conduct. In other words, people who do not act in good faith, or who act in a way that brings the municipality into disrepute, can face disciplinary consequences.
Policies
Depending on the level of detail to which ethics risks are addressed in the code or values statement, it may be necessary to develop separate policies for specific issues.
Policies are often developed for, amongst others:
- Conflicts of interest / declaration of interests;
- Gift acceptance;
- Other remunerative work by employees;
- Sexual harassment;
- Whistleblowing; and
- Investigations.
You will notice that many of these areas are already covered in public service policies. It may, however, still be necessary to develop departmental policies to give effect to the public service policies. For example, the public service Code of Conduct may specify that approval must be obtained for gifts of over R500. The departmental policy must align with this, but will go further in saying how an employee is to go about obtaining the permission.
A departmental code of ethics could also include reference to these additional policies and where they can be found.
Even if the department doesn’t have additional procedures to communicate, it is still helpful to employees to have all the ethics-related policies in one place for ease of reference.
Review
Both the code and the policies should be reviewed from time to time to ensure they are still up to date, appropriate and effective.
Extract from the Municipal Integrity Management Framework
4.2. Develop relevant policies to promote integrity in the organisation
- Municipalities should develop policies to promote ethics and integrity in the organisation. These may include a values statement and policies that deal with:
- Integrity management
- Fraud and corruption prevention
- Supply chain management
- Conflicts of interest
- Recruitment, selection and appointment
- Including vetting and pre-employment screening
- Whistle-blowing
- Including non-retaliation
- Electronic communications and telephone use
- It must be stipulated that the municipality may monitor communications.
- Investigations
- Disciplinary matters
Care should be taken not to duplicate policies and some policies may therefore cover more than one aspect mentioned above.
- Processes / resources must be put in place to ensure that it is easy for employees to adhere to the policies.For example – where employees need to get permission for external remunerative work there should be:
- A standard form to be completed
- A resource person to contact for assistance
- Examples of how the form needs to be completed
- Trained staff to ensure that the forms are assessed and that appropriate recommendations are made.
- Policies must be easily accessible by employees and the public.
- Policies must be communicated to employees and they must be trained on their implementation.
Strategic Work
Strategic work is done once in 3 years. This work integrates ethics into the organisation’s long-term vision, governance systems, decision making, and stakeholder engagement.
Institutionalisation
Everyday Work
The institutionalisation of ethics is the core role of the ethics officer or the everyday work. The focus of institutionalisation is on how to make ethics real in the organisation so that it becomes part of the organisational culture.
INSTITUTIONALISATION
Making Ethics RealIn The Organisation.
The work of the ethics officer is to manage the ethics programme of the organisation.
