Ministries of Employment and Justice Among 35 Agencies Rated Top Grade for Corruption Prevention... Fire Agency Fails

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chae-seok] The Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Ministry of Justice, and 33 other public institutions received the highest grade, Grade 1, in last year's Anti-Corruption Policy Evaluation. Twelve institutions, including the National Fire Agency, received a failing Grade 5.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced on the 28th the results of the "2019 Anti-Corruption Policy Evaluation," conducted on 270 public institutions.

The Anti-Corruption Policy Evaluation is a system designed to raise the integrity level of the public sector by evaluating and supporting anti-corruption efforts autonomously pursued by each public institution. The Commission has been conducting this evaluation annually since 2002.

The Commission evaluated each institution's implementation performance of anti-corruption policies carried out from November 2018 to October last year across seven tasks: ▲Establishment of anti-corruption promotion plans ▲Expansion of participation in integrity policies ▲Establishment of anti-corruption systems ▲Efforts to eliminate corruption risks ▲Operation of anti-corruption systems ▲Anti-corruption policy outcomes ▲Efforts to spread anti-corruption policies, and classified them into five grades.

Among the institutions whose grades improved in this evaluation, 68 institutions (excluding 10 institutions such as national and public universities and public medical institutions with different integrity measurement models out of 78 institutions) recorded a 2019 integrity score of 0.12, which is 0.05 points higher than the overall increase in integrity scores of all institutions. The Commission explained that this is clear evidence that institutions actively engaged in anti-corruption policy efforts also showed noticeable improvements in integrity evaluations.

By institution, 35 institutions including the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups received Grade 1. Seventy-seven institutions received Grade 2, accounting for 41.5% (112 institutions in total) of the institutions selected as excellent. Sixty-six institutions maintained Grade 1 or 2 for two consecutive years, including the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Gyeonggi Province, Yeongdeungpo District of Seoul, Gangwon Provincial Office of Education, and the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor was recognized for implementing policies that the public can feel, linked to the government's five-year comprehensive anti-corruption plan, including the establishment of guidelines to eradicate power abuse and support for spreading power abuse eradication in the private sector.

Twelve institutions, including the National Fire Agency, received the lowest Grade 5. Three institutions?the National Fire Agency, Korea Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences, and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science?maintained Grade 5 in 2019 following 2018.

Overall, the average score of the 270 institutions evaluated last year was 82.5 points, with metropolitan and provincial offices of education scoring the highest at 87.0 points. They were followed by metropolitan local governments (85.3 points), public-related organizations (85.1 points), and central administrative agencies (83.1 points). Basic local governments (77.2 points), universities (74.5 points), and public medical institutions (68.6 points) scored relatively lower.

Seventy-eight institutions (31.1%) improved their evaluation grades compared to 2018, and 26 institutions (10.4%) improved by two or more grades. Chungcheongnam-do improved by four grades, two institutions including the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission improved by three grades, and 23 institutions including the Ministry of Employment and Labor improved by two grades.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission plans to strengthen the criteria and scoring of effectiveness evaluation indicators to ensure that public institutions' anti-corruption policies produce tangible results, moving away from effort-centered evaluations this year. Additionally, incentives such as government award recommendations for excellent institutions and personnel, and participation in overseas anti-corruption training will continue to be provided as in the previous year.

Furthermore, the Commission will actively discover best practice cases of excellent institutions and share and disseminate them through the National Integrity Information System (Integrity e-System) to support efforts to strengthen autonomous integrity capabilities of institutions with poor evaluation results. In the future, a search function for excellent policies will be added to the National Integrity Information System to increase the utilization of best practice cases.

Im Yoon-joo, Director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau at the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, said, "Public institutions at all levels must strive to implement sustainable and effective policies based on thorough analysis of corruption-prone areas," adding, "Since the anti-corruption will and efforts of institution heads and senior officials are crucial, anti-corruption policies led by institution heads are necessary."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.