Jeonnam Province's 'Integrity Policy' Achievements... Ranked 2nd Nationwide Among Cities and Provinces in Integrity Evaluation

[Muan=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Yoon Jamin] Jeonnam Province announced on the 26th that it achieved Grade 2 in the 2022 Comprehensive Integrity Evaluation of Public Institutions conducted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, ranking 2nd among cities and provinces nationwide.

The Comprehensive Integrity Evaluation of Public Institutions is conducted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission by combining survey results from ▲citizens with work experience in the institution (external perception) ▲affiliated employees (internal perception), ▲evaluation of anti-corruption efforts in self-initiated policies, and ▲deductions due to corruption incidents.

The province improved its grade from Grade 4 in 2020 to Grade 3 in 2021, and Grade 2 in 2022, raising one grade each year. Since no metropolitan local government received Grade 1 nationwide, this effectively represents the highest grade.

Specifically, the external perception score was 91.4 points, 4.4 points higher than the metropolitan average; the internal perception score was 64.9 points, 0.8 points higher; and the integrity effort score was 88 points, 0.4 points higher.

This is analyzed to be the result of Jeonnam Province designating 2022 as the inaugural year of ‘Integrity Excellence Jeonnam’ with the launch of the 8th elected administration, focusing externally on strengthening communication by listening to voices from the field and internally on fostering a healthy workplace culture, thereby promoting various integrity policies.

In fact, in the external perception area, field difficulties were resolved through policies such as ‘Visiting Integrity Consulting’ and ‘Integrity Happy Call’ extended to construction, service, and subsidy project sites.

They also operated the ‘Citizen Grievance Resolution Support Team,’ a new type of grievance handling system that proactively identifies latent complaints and resolves them according to citizens’ expectations, making the strong will to establish the inaugural year of ‘Integrity Excellence Jeonnam’ tangible to the residents.

In the internal perception area, considering that lower-ranking employees perceive the organizational culture as unfair, efforts were made to improve the organizational culture by narrowing the gap between the existing generation and the MZ (Millennial and Gen Z) generation through a substantive ‘Integrity Dialogue Meeting with the MZ Generation.’

Through the ‘Integrity Dialogue Meeting’ where the governor and MZ generation employees with short public service experience could speak openly, honest opinions were collected and systematically fed back by sharing with mid-level staff, striving to rebirth the organization into a lively one.

Kim Seguk, Auditor of Jeonnam Province, said, “The Grade 2 result in this comprehensive integrity evaluation is the first outcome toward realizing ‘The 8th Elected Administration’s Great Leap Forward to the World! Jeonnam Happiness Era.’ We will not be satisfied with this result and will do our best to further improve vulnerable areas in integrity and spread the culture of integrity.”