Office of the City Auditor

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Issued: November 2002

SUMMARY

This report presents findings and recommendations from our audit of Citywide ethics.

Currently the ethical climate varies widely across City departments.

The City’s Listening to the Workforce survey contains 15 questions related to ethical climate factors and outcomes, with standard deviations on positive responses from 6.6 to 10 percent, where two percent is a desired standard deviation. Examples of this variation across departments in the proportion of positive responses include:

• Variation in employees reporting that quick and decisive action will be taken if wrongdoing is discovered ranges from a high of 79 percent to a low of 29 percent.
• Variation in employees’ perception that managers follow laws and policies ranges from a high of almost 84 percent to a low of 46 percent.
• Variation in employees’ perception that they can report any unethical behavior without fear of retaliation ranges from around 63 percent in the high department to 34 percent in the lowest.

A more uniformly strong ethical climate would be likely to result in financial and administrative benefits to the City. Benefits associated with a strong ethical climate include:

• Lower number and cost of successful legal claims against the City;
• Fewer complaints from the public and higher perceived quality of service delivery;
• Fewer lost time injuries and less sick leave usage; and
• Stronger commitment to the City by its employees.

We have most of the elements that the City would need for a comprehensive ethics management framework in place; however, the additional elements the City needs can be implemented without requiring additional resources up front. Elements that the City needs fall under these categories:

• Corporate oversight;
• Consistent enforcement of standards;
• Additional policies and procedures;
• Stronger communication; and
• Broader response when misconduct occurs.

Click here to go to our audit request form to request a hard copy of this report (Report No. AU02302) or download the entire text of the Citywide Ethics audit (Size: 1349 KB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files.

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