Ethical Environment
The ethical environment must be owned , enforced, adopted and applied equally and consistently across the public sector.
The ethical environment must be self-sustaining and integrated. If the ethical environment has potential weak points, new means of accountability must be introduced or existing means upgraded and reinforced to counter these weaknesses. Here role of ethical auditing is important as it helps to determine where exact problem lies.
The ethical environment require political commitment and leadership to inspire confidence and trust but it should not always be the politicians who have the sole responsibility to own and enforce it.
The ethical environment depends on micro level changes in order to deal with consequences of failure.
Failure of at this front can result in
a) Weak guidance on standards of conduct or poor compliance with procedures.
b) officials indifference and ignorance
c) aggregated decision-making powers
d) inadequate financial and management information system
e) lax working practices
f) poor staff relation