Vertical Progress Since the Eighth Administration
Achievements in Transparent and Trustworthy Governance
Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province (Mayor Shin Sangjin) announced on December 24 that it achieved a Grade 2 rating in the 2025 Public Institution Integrity Assessment released by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.
Seongnam Mayor Shin Sangjin is delivering a greeting at the Challenge! Integrity Golden Bell event, participated by Seongnam city officials, held at Onnuri in the city hall on September 3. Provided by Seongnam City
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission’s integrity assessment evaluates the level of integrity of public institutions and local governments nationwide each year, based on surveys of public officials and citizens, as well as the occurrence of corruption cases. Institutions are graded on a scale from Grade 1 to Grade 5.
Seongnam City recorded a Grade 4 rating in 2022, then improved to Grade 3 in both 2023 and 2024, and made further progress by achieving Grade 2 in 2025. This is attributed to the phased implementation of integrity policies under the eighth popularly elected administration, which have led to tangible results across city administration. Notably, in this year’s assessment, there were no corruption cases resulting in disciplinary action due to external criticism, so the city maintained its integrity rating without any deductions in the corruption evaluation.
This achievement is seen as the result of setting the first goal of city administration as trust-based governance grounded in fairness and common sense, and consistently promoting efforts to enhance public officials’ awareness of integrity and improve administrative practices throughout the organization.
Seongnam City has strengthened the culture of integrity among public officials through various policies, including regular integrity training, self-assessment of corruption-prone areas, activation of an anonymous reporting system, and fostering integrity leaders among civil servants. In particular, the city designated 2025 as the “First Year of Integrity Practice in Seongnam,” and pursued a total of 27 detailed action items under six customized integrity practice tasks and four strategic sectors, including tailored integrity education and the “Establishing Upright Integrity Awareness” initiative. Among these, 12 tasks-such as the “Embodying Integrity” essay contest-were newly developed or improved to address issues identified in the 2024 integrity assessment, with a focus on raising integrity in collaboration with citizens.
Mayor Shin Sangjin stated, “Achieving Grade 2 in this year’s integrity assessment is a valuable result created together by citizens and public officials,” and added, “We will continue to prioritize transparency and fairness in all administrative processes to maintain a city government that citizens can trust.”
Seongnam City plans to build on this success and continue working toward achieving Grade 1 in integrity by expanding integrity consulting, strengthening transparency in construction and service contracts, and enhancing the protection system for citizen whistleblowers.
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