The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has identified corruption impacting the most senior Commonwealth officials as a strategic priority.[1] The good news is that there are simple steps Commonwealth agencies can take to ensure they are not exposed.

Strategic corruption priorities are areas of focus the NACC has determined to have the greatest potential impact on corruption in the Commonwealth public sector. While corrupt conduct at any level of government decision-making is problematic, the NACC rightly identifies that senior public officials have ‘considerable authority and substantial resources at their disposal’.[2] This means that corruption may be more likely to go undetected or unchecked, and that the impacts of corrupt conduct can be materially worse in terms of the economic and reputational impact on the agencies they represent.

As probity advisers to the Commonwealth, we occasionally encounter a level of discomfort with seeking to draw senior officials into the probity and integrity tent, and a hesitancy to impose probity obligations on them for particular activities. For those agencies that are unsure about extending the application of probity and integrity measures to senior decision-makers, the NACC has given a clear warning that this approach is high risk, and not consistent with public expectations for government decision makers.

Corruption can be the result of intentional wrongdoing. It can also be the unintended consequence of poor training, flawed systems and an inadequate understanding of integrity obligations. The former is difficult to prevent, but the latter – inadvertent wrongdoing amounting to corruption - is something that Commonwealth agencies can address.

We recommend the following three strategies to ensure that Commonwealth agencies are protecting themselves, their senior officials, and the public, from corruption risk.

1.  Extending probity coverage

Often, we find that clients will seek to target core probity and integrity measures, such as the need to actively consider whether an individual has any actual, potential or perceived conflict in relation to an activity, at APS and EL level staff. SES personnel and other senior decision makers, it is believed, are fully aware of their statutory obligations and complete annual declarations of interest that are sufficient. There are two flaws in this reasoning:

1. The greater the degree of influence, the greater the need to safeguard probity. If junior staff with minimal ability to influence the outcome of a process must receive a briefing and complete paperwork to properly manage probity risk, then so too must senior personnel with a greater and much more direct ability to influence the outcome.
2. It is impossible for an annual declaration to capture the parties involved in every procurement process that the agency will undertake in the following 12 months, or every key stakeholder who will seek to influence the decision making of agency executives. Declarations can only be fully effective if they are contemporaneous with the activity for which conflicts must be checked.

Declarations can only be fully effective if they are contemporaneous with the activity for which conflicts must be checked.

The Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cth) (PGPA Act) imposes greater integrity obligations on agency heads than it does on less senior personnel, and for good reason. Managing the risk of corrupt conduct in a meaningful way requires that agencies have policies and processes that apply to officials at all levels of seniority. These should be accompanied by clear compliance monitoring mechanisms that allow concerns regarding the conduct of senior personnel to be identified, documented and escalated.

2. Leading from the front

We recommend that your agency-wide integrity policies and activity-specific probity management strategies explicitly capture SES personnel.  You can do this by:

• identifying the Delegate as a person required to comply with your Probity Plan or other governance documents for procurements and decision-making processes. If the identity of the Delegate is not known, simply refer to the officer approved to exercise spending delegation for the current process, to ensure that anyone stepping into this position is properly captured.
• requiring SES personnel to attend refresher training, to attend a probity briefing if one is provided to other personnel, and to complete the same conflict of interest declaration, confidentiality acknowledgement or any other forms specific to an activity. Where an actual, potential or perceived conflict is identified by senior personnel, take a rigorous approach to assessment and document clear management strategies that will be applied. Never permit SES personnel to rule on their own conflicts.
• encouraging SES personnel to role model an integrity mindset. Organisations with effective probity management use a top-down approach to create a culture of care, diligence and compliance. If leaders are seen to prioritise probity, others will follow suit.

3. Teaching practical integrity

Integrity is already a core part of induction processes for new Commonwealth officials, but is sometimes principles based, or focussed on the language of compliance with statutory obligations in the PGPA Act and APS Code of Conduct.  Probity obligations can be difficult to fully engage with in the abstract. Training may also be overlooked for senior officials, based on the assumption that all SES personnel are intimately acquainted with their integrity responsibilities.

In our experience, the most effective probity and integrity training takes a practical focus, looking at real scenarios to highlight the corruption risks that they carry. Good training will be explicit about how integrity principles and statutory obligations translate to practical situations in which senior officials may find themselves. Great training will involve a sophisticated analysis of risk, rather than drawing simple conclusions about some categories of activities being inherently either acceptable or improper. The best training will also target any responsibilities or interactions unique to the particular agency, with which new starters will not be familiar, to clearly articulate both the risks inherent in these activities and the agency’s approach to managing them.  

Is your agency setting its senior officials up for success? If not reach out to our team to explore how we can help.

[1] Strategic corruption priorities | National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)

[2] Strategic corruption priorities | National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)