Chicago Compliance and Integrity Survey
<br>
<b>Update:</b> January 4, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
On December 15, Chicago published a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/24238034/2009-City-of-Chicago-Compliance-and-…; target="”_blank”">Compliance
and
Integrity
Survey</a> that its <a href="http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalEntityHomeAction.do?…; target="”_blank”">Office
of
Compliance</a> commissioned from the <a href="http://www.ethics.org/" target="”_blank”">Ethics
Resource
Center</a>, a primarily
corporate ethics and compliance research organization.<br>
<br>
Here are some of the principal findings of the survey. Comparisons are
to the <a href="http://www.ethics.org/files/u5/The_National_Government_Ethics_Survey.pd…; target="”_blank”">local
government
portion</a> (pages 31-35) of the ERC's 2007 National
Workplace Ethics Survey<br>
<br>
Ethics
Environment:
62% said they perceive the city’s culture of
compliance to be strong (compared to 80% in the national average of
local governments). But only 17% (versus the national average of 54%)
feel that Chicago employees are rewarded for following compliance
standards. On the other hand, many fewer Chicago employees said they witnessed
conflicts of interest than the national average (15% vs. 26%).<br>
<br>
Supervisors: Only 69% credited workplace supervisors with
reinforcing ethical conduct on the job, compared with the national
average of 80%. (see Whistle-blowing below for more on supervisors)<br>
<br>
Ethical Leadership: 67% see top management as communicating
the importance of following the rules, but only 42% perceive the
information as satisfactory. In the local government average, 82% said
top management communicates the importance of rules and 77% were
satisfied with the information.<br>
<br>
Whistle-blowing: Observations of workplace misconduct were
lower in Chicago
than the local government average. However, only 50% of Chicago
employees reported their observations, compared to a national average
of 67%. The primary reason for not reporting was the belief that no
corrective action would be taken. But employees also reported more
retaliation than the national average (26% vs. 20%), and many more
feared retaliation than the national average (60% vs. 28% feared
retaliation from supervisors, and 41% vs. 26% from coworkers).<br>
<br>
The ERC's executive summary recommends that the 2007 compliance program
has been recognized by city employees, and that the next step is to
focus on culture. But the Next Steps section treats Chicago as if it
were a big corporation rather than a highly dysfunctional local
government. And since the survey was commissioned by the office of
compliance, nothing is said about the city's ethics program. This is
yet another example of the sort of dysfunction that comes from dividing
government ethics up into components in a way that leads them to
compete rather than work together toward the same goals.<br>
<br>
<b>Update:</b> January 4, 2010<br>
San Diego commissioned a similar <a href="http://www.sandiego.gov/mayor/pdf/oei_factsheet_12_07.pdf" target="”_blank”">compliance survey</a> from the Ethics Resource Center in 2006, and the recommendations similarly ignore the principal differences between corporations and governments.<br>
<br>
According to the <a href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/public_safety/pavement/article_93b88b45-…; target="”_blank”">People's Reporter column</a> on voiceofsandiego.com, a second ethics survey was commissioned in 2008, but apparently was not published because the mayor got rid of his Office of Ethics and Integrity, which was the commissioning agency. By the way, only one of <a href="http://www.sandiego.gov/fm/annual/pdf/fy09/30v2officeofethics.pdf" target="”_blank”">the Office's five goals</a> (see pp. 6-7) had anything to do with government ethics; the rest of the goals involved personnel issues.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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