Public sector workers largely have faith in the integrity of their agency, a survey shows.
Conducted between August and September by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the 2024 Commonwealth Integrity Survey was held to help understand the perceptions of integrity and corruption in the Australian public sector.
Among the findings – which were released last week – 79% of respondents across 171 public sector departments answered favourably when asked if they had faith in the agency they worked for.
However, when asked if they had faith in their agency’s anti-corruption controls, only 69% ticked yes. But, as the report’s authors note: “This lower average rating was largely due to mixed rather than negative sentiment.”
Almost all employees – 96% – expressed confidence that they would be able to identify corruption within their area of responsibility.
When presented with five scenarios – four of which included examples of corrupt practice – 84% of respondents provided the best response in at least three of the scenarios; only 20% provided the best response across all five.
As well, most of the 58,309 respondents also indicated a willingness to report corruption if they had direct access to specific details – 88%. That percentage dropped to 69% when public sector employees were asked if they were willing to report corruption having just been told about specific details.
Only 45% would report corruption if they had a suspicion but no details; and 34% if they learned through hearsay, but with no details. Most employees believed they knew or could readily find out how to report corruption either internally – 83% – or to the corruption watchdog – 72%.
Further analysis shows that the 1,128 respondents who held a monitoring and audit role had much the same assessment of the strength of organisational controls as did other agency staff.
These staff also did slightly better at identifying corruption in the hypothetical examples – although even among these staff, only 22% provided the best response across all five scenarios.
The survey also showed that the most positive results were recorded among smaller agencies – those with 100 or fewer staff, particularly with regards to organisational integrity and anti-corruption controls. Results were broadly similar across other agency sizes.
“It’s very encouraging that public sector employees overwhelmingly have faith in the integrity of their agencies, confidence in their ability to identify corruption, and are willing to report it,” commission chief Paul Brereton told Government News. “The fact that nearly two-thirds consider that their colleagues would be supportive of those who report corrupt conduct shows a pro-reporting culture, although there is still more work to be done there. The relatively high incidence of nepotism and cronyism reflects the commission’s experience, and these are focus areas for our investigatory and prevention and education work.”
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