Office of the Public Sector Standards Commissioner

Good Governance

Nine Governance Principles

Principle 5: Ethics and integrity

Ethics and integrity are embedded in the organisation's values and operations.

Ethical behaviour is a fundamental corner stone of good governance. It is critical to ensure integrity in decision making and quality of public service, and is essential to ensure citizens' trust in government. What’s more, subscribing to ethics as a basic value for all operations is key for good business and good outcomes.

Standards (what is required?):

5.1

The organisation's values and code of conduct reflect the WA Code of Ethics and define the standards of official conduct and professional behaviour expected of all employees.

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

Operations (how do you achieve it?):

5.2

The organisation's ethics and integrity risks are identified and policies and operational processes address them (e.g. procurement, conflict of interest).

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

5.3

People management frameworks define the response to non-ethical behaviour.

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

5.4

Processes are in place to provide supervision and assistance and enable follow up of non-compliance (e.g. through public interest disclosure).

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

Monitoring (how do you know you are meeting the standards?):

5.5

A structured process is in place to monitor official conduct and professional behaviour (e.g. compliance audit, performance management).

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

Reporting (how do you let the right people know?):

 

The organisation's annual report identifies compliance levels against the relevant standards.

Annual compliance reporting addresses compliance with WA's requirements for good governance.

All material matters are reported to the relevant oversight bodies.

Mandatory requirements | Guidelines | Good practice examples

Having trouble opening PDF documents?

To view a document in Adobe PDF format, you may first need to download a free copy of the Adobe Acrobat reader (external website).
Text size a A

Key resources


Disclaimer

OPSSC is providing the Good Governance Guide and the related Maturity Model free of charge to the WA public sector and the wider community. OPSSC, on behalf of the State of Western Australia, retains all intellectual property rights. OPSSC must be properly acknowledged whenever reference is made to the Good Governance Guide, the Maturity Model, other products of the Good Governance Guide or parts thereof. None of these products or parts thereof may be used for the purpose of generating profit for yourself, your organization or a third party.

Page last updated: August 17 2009