The Public Sector Commission (PSC) has issued a new Commissioner’s Instruction on ethical foundations, aimed at building a Public Sector whose employees act ethically and who promote and maintain integrity.
Commissioner’s Instruction 40: Ethical Foundations applies to all public sector bodies and employees as defined by section 3 of the Public Sector Management Act 1994 (the PSM Act), including Departments, Senior Executive Service (SES) and non-SES organisations, Ministerial offices, Board Members, Chief Executive Officers, Chief employees and Ministerial staff.
According to the Instruction each public sector agency is to provide formal and planned integrity training on its code of conduct and each staff and board member is to complete it.
“This formal training needs to be customised to reflect the agency’s legislative and operating conditions and risk profile,” the PSC said.
“Appropriate records must be kept of how many current staff and board members complete the training and the year they complete it,” it said.
It said each public sector agency was also required to provide formal and planned refresher integrity training on its code no less than every three years.
“Refresher training is training that brings integrity messages back to ‘top of mind’,” it said.
“The agency should take the opportunity during refresher training to update staff and board members on relevant changes to its structure and operating conditions, new or emerging integrity risks identified, and updates on its code, integrity policies and procedures. It can be the full training again or an abridged version.”
The PSC said the Accountable and Ethical Decision Making training materials previously provided by the Commission have been replaced by Developing Code of Conduct Training and generic sample core content.
“Public sector agencies should refer to these materials when reviewing training in the next review cycle and ensure training closely reflects the requirements of its code,” it said.
The 4-page Commissioner’s Instruction 40: Ethical Foundations can be accessed at this PS News link.
