Integrity Measurement and Assessment Framework-Comprehensive Construct to Combat Corruption

Abstract

Rethinking the role of integrity implies that something is wrong withinthe existing paradigm and metaphor of activities. The prevailingnegative view of the state of integrity Could be attributed to thelevels of decaying moral ethics and poor relationship between state andcivil society. This paper attempts to push the notions of integrityassessment further, by taking ``wholeness{''} of the concept ofintegrity to include not only the behaviour of officials and theirorganisations but also the internal climate of public institutions theirstated procedures, informal norms, divisions of labour, incentive andaccountability systems, monitoring processes, and to interactions withthe wider society. Assessing integrity in public institutions requiresthat breadth of focus a subject which will be delved into this paper.Besides, study of data on public misconduct and corruption will provideempirical underpinning to the paper. The data collated by variousnational and international organisations on integrity study reinforcesthe belief that the issue of integrity has caught the attention ofpolicy makers especially in the wake of economic crisis and corporatemisconduct.The purpose of this paper is to understand the assessment strategiescurrently employed by government integrity programmes. Within the term``assessment{''} is included any effort, quantitative or qualitative, toevaluate programme effectiveness. This study provides an overview ofapproaches governments and public organisations have taken to evaluateintegrity programmes and how it is a step forward from corruption study.It is true that the effectiveness of most government programmes cannotbe directly or quantitatively measured. Nonetheless, a number ofindirect measures of programme and programme effect can providereasonable understanding of programmatic outcomes. Importantly, ifassessment is done regularly there can be both a contemporary assessmentas well as comparative assessments over time. Although countries are atdifferent stages in the ``assessment journey{''}, developing relevantmethodologies and practical tools for assessing the impact of integritymeasures is a growing concern in all countries. The approach taken hereis to provide policy makers and managers with a roadmap to design andorganise an assessment that will capture and analyse relevantinformation for decision-making. The generic assessment frameworkaddresses in a systematic way the issues faced at different steps of the``assessment journey{''}, and provides checklists and options forsolutions highlighted with country examples.