The ACRC commissioned Millward Brown Media Research and Nielsen Company Korea to carry out 2009 Public Organization Integrity Assessment for the last 3 months. The Integrity Assessment was done through telephone and email on some 119,000 public service users and public officials with ±0.02%P sampling error and 95% confidence level.

According to the Integrity Assessment commissioned, provision rate and amount of gratuities and entertainment offered to public officials were reduced for the last one year but illegal and unjust execution of budget was increased. Gratuities provision rate was down from 0.5% in 2008 to 0.3% in 2009, and entertainment provision rate was also decreased from 0.6% in 2008 to 0.3% in 2009.

The Integrity Assessment shows that External Integrity was 8.61 and Internal Integrity was 8.14 with Comprehensive Integrity for 160 public organizations averaging the two at 8.51, up 0.31 from the previous year.

All public organizations surveyed saw their Comprehensive Integrity increase with organizations related to pubic service having the highest integrity level at 8.86 and education offices of cities and provinces at the lowest level at 8.05.  

Provision rate and amount of gratuities and entertainment offered by public service users were down compared to the previous year. The average amount of gratuities offered was down from 1.39 million won in 2008 to 1.35 million won in 2009. The average amount of entertainment offered was also reduced from 0.95 million won in 2008 to 0.81 million won in 2009. 

However, Internal Integrity done on the employees of 164 public organizations deteriorated by 0.13 from the previous year. Corruption experience in personnel management was at 7.85, down 1.17 points, and budget execution was at 7.84, down 0.03 points.

The result of Integrity Assessment was divided into 5 categories of excellent, good, average, bad, and very bad. Among central government organizations, the Multi-functional Administrative Construction Agency and the Ministry of Gender Equality were excellent performers in both Internal and External Integrity. Whereas the Fair Trade Commission improved by the largest margin, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs experienced the biggest drop in score, down 0.77 points. The Ministry of Unification, the Public Prosecutors’ Office and National Police Agency brought up the rear.

Among metropolitan city governments, Gwangju Metropolitan City received excellent mark. While Jeju Special Self-governing Province improved by the largest margin, GyeongNam Province was among the worst performers with its integrity score dropping by 0.72.

Among city and provincial offices of education, Jeju Special Self-governing Provincial Office of Education improved by the biggest margin, as opposed to Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education and Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education, which were among the worst performers.  

Among organizations related to public service, the Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation and the Korea Airports Corporation received excellent mark in Comprehensive Integrity, the Korea Electric Power Corporation performed very well in External Integrity as it did last year.   

The Korea Agricultural Cooperatives recorded the lowest score in Internal Integrity and the former Korea Housing Corporation got very poor performance in External Integrity.   

In year-on-year comparison, while 11 central government organizations including the Fair Trade Commission, the Cultural Heritage Administration and the Ministry of National Defense moved forward significantly in ranking, 12 organizations including the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs and the Statistics Korea saw their ranking drop significantly.   

Based on the results, the ACRC plans to enhance transparency in budget execution process and strengthen monitoring of large-scale national projects that require huge amount of funding. It also plans to pursue continuous institutional and system improvement, and actively deal with irregularities caused by wrong attitudes and behaviors of public officials. It plans to expand the number of public organizations that are subject to Integrity Assessment and carry out Integrity Assessment for high-ranking public officials.

In addition, the ACRC will request public organizations with low integrity score to submit plans to boost their integrity level, and at the same time impose penalty within permissible range by law after consulting with competent ministries.