3  Integrity

The integrity indicator is defined as: the extent to which civil servants behave with integrity, make decisions impartially and fairly, and strive to serve both citizens and ministers, and is one of the core values associated with a civil service. The International Civil Service Commission (2002) highlights the importance of integrity to the work of the United Nations (UN) common systems staff: “The concept of integrity … embraces all aspects of behaviour of an international civil servant … including … honesty, truthfulness, impartiality and incorruptibility. These qualities are as basic as those of competence and efficiency”. Numerous studies aiming to establish good governance have utilised similar metrics in their analyses, for instance Muriithi et al. (2015). The inclusion of integrity in the InCiSE is therefore deemed necessary and crucial for the assessment of an effective civil service.

The indicator for integrity is comprised of 17 metrics – an increase of one from the 2017 Pilot edition. A change has also been made in the metric on post-employment cooling-off in the way it has been coded from the source data.

The following sources are used:

Table 3.1: Composition of the integrity indicator
Metric Source Type Public sector proxy Data transformation Weighting within indicator Definition of the source metric (e.g. question wording)
In theme (A) Theme (B) Total (C=A*B)
Levels/perception of corruption
Official corrupt GCB Public opinion survey No None 25.0% 30.0% 7.5% How many [government officials] do you think are involved in corruption, or haven’t you heard enough about them to say? [None, Some of them, Most of them, All of them; % saying none/some ]
Business favouritism WEF Business opinion survey Yes None 25.0% 30.0% 7.5% In your country, to what extent do government officials show favoritism to well-connected firms and individuals when deciding upon policies and contracts? [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officals embezzle funds QoG Expert assessment Yes Inverted 25.0% 30.0% 7.5% Public sector employees steal, embezzle or misappropriate public funds or other state resources for personal or family use [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officials grant favours QoG Expert assessment Yes Inverted 25.0% 30.0% 7.5% Public sector employees grant favors in exchange for bribes, kickbacks or other material inducements [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Fairness and impartiality
Fair treatment QoG Expert assessment Yes Inverted 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% When deciding how to implement policies in individual cases, public sector employees treat some groups in society unfairly [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officals act impartially QoG Expert assessment Yes None 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% Generally speaking, how often would you say that public sector employees today, in your chosen country, act impartially when deciding how to implement a policy in an individual case? [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Adherence to rules/procedures
Officials follow rules QoG Expert assessment Yes None 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% Public sector employees strive to follow rules [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Corruption prevention [new] SGI Expert assessment Yes None 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% To what extent are public officeholders prevented from abusing their position for private interests? [Rated 1 to 10; mean score]
Serving government and citizens
Officials strive to help citizens QoG Expert assessment Yes None 33.3% 12.5% 4.2% Public sector employees strive to help citizens [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officials implement ministerial policies QoG Expert assessment Yes None 33.3% 12.5% 4.2% Public sector employees strive to implement the policies decided upon by the top political leadership [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officials implement the government's programme QoG Expert assessment Yes None 33.3% 12.5% 4.2% Public sector employees strive to fulfill the ideology of the party/parties in government [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Work ethic
Unathorised absence QoG Expert assessment Yes Inverted 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% Public employees are absent from work with- out permission [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Officials strive to be efficient QoG Expert assessment Yes None 50.0% 12.5% 6.2% Public sector employees strive to be efficient [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Preserving intetgrity and preventing conflict of interest
Post-employment cooling-off OECD Government assessment No None 25.0% 20.0% 5.0% Existence of post-employment cooling-off period for senior civil servants and all other civil servants
Lobbyist protections OECD Government assessment No None 25.0% 20.0% 5.0% Three binary (yes/no) variables on lobbyist protections
Coverage of whistleblower protections OECD Government assessment Yes None 25.0% 20.0% 5.0% Six binary (yes/no) variables on whistleblower protections
Degree of whistleblower protections QoG Expert assessment Yes Inverted 25.0% 20.0% 5.0% Public officials face negative consequences for whistleblowing to media [Rated 1-7; mean score]
Tables 3.1.A & 3.1.B in the original 2019 publication

3.1 Imputation of missing data

None of the 38 countries selected for the 2019 edition of InCiSE have completely missing data for the integrity metrics. As a result the imputation of missing data for the integrity metrics is based solely on the data within the indicator.

3.2 Changes from the 2017 pilot

There is one proposed change to the structure of the metrics used in the calculation of the integrity indicator: the inclusion of a measure from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Sustainable Governance Indicators on corruption prevention.

A further change from the 2017 pilot methodology has been implemented in the processing of the OECD’s data on post-employment cooling-off periods. The model now simply codes whether post-employment cooling-off periods and now ignores whether compensation is paid during this period.

The OECD source data provides information on whether post-employment cooling-off periods exist for both senior civil servant sand other civil servants, and also includes information on whether a compensation period is paid during that period.

These data are combined by the InCiSE model into a single scale, outlined below. In the 2017 Pilot, this scale creates the normative conditions that a post-employment cooling-off period with compensation for both groups of civil servants is “best” and no cooling-off period is “worst”, Table 3.2.

Table 3.2: Coding of post-employment cooling-off in the 2017 Pilot edition of InCiSE
InCiSE 2017 post-employment scale value Senior civil servants Other civil servants
Cooling-off period? With compensation? Cooling-off period? With compensation?
4 Yes Yes Yes Yes
3 Yes Yes Yes No
Yes No Yes Yes
2 Yes Yes No N/A
No N/A Yes Yes
Yes No Yes No
1 Yes No No N/A
No N/A Yes No
0 No N/A No N/A
Table 3.1.C in the original 2019 publication

Further examination of the data, as reported by the OECD, showed that only a limited number of officials in only a small number of countries received paid compensation during a cooling off period and that there was noticeable variation in how this was decided by country. This limited usage of post-employment compensation and high variability in its nature suggests that it may not be appropriate to code in the provision of post-employment compensation as normative “best” practice in the calculation of the integrity indicator.

“During the cooling off period, only some categories of public officials in Austria, Israel, Norway, Portugal and Spain receive compensation. For instance, in Spain, public officials receive 80% of their basic salaries as compensation and in Norway, compensation is awarded only for prohibitions on taking up a specific appointment, the level of which is equivalent to the salary received at the time of the public official left public office” (OECD, 2015, p. 116)

Therefore, for the 2019 edition, InCiSE has adopted a new scale that measures only the existence of post-employment cooling-off periods for senior civil servants and other civil servants, ignoring the use/existence of compensation, Table 3.3. The highest score will be awarded for those countries that have a cooling-off period for both groups of civil servants, the lowest score for those that do not have a cooling-off period for either group, while an intermediate score will be given to those countries that have a cooling-off period for one group but not the other – with cooling-off periods for senior civil servants preferred to those for non-senior civil servants.

Table 3.3: Coding of post-employment cooling-off in the 2019 edition of InCiSE
InCiSE 2019 post-employment scale value Does a post-employment cooling-off period exist for...?
Senior civil servants Other civil servants
3 Yes Yes
2 Yes No
1 No Yes
0 No No
Table 3.1.D in the original 2019 publication
Cross-referencing note

This chapter was presented as section 3.1 in the original 2019 publication.