The Gatekeepers: Corruption risks with ministerial advisors
- Recommendations
- 6
- Report length
- 16 pages
Summary
The report's own summary: Commissioner’s foreword, page 4
Generated summary: written by an AI model from the report text and checked against the cited pages.
The South Australian Independent Commission Against Corruption examined governance risks for ministerial advisors after investigating unexplained payments to an advisor.
The Commission reported that it found no evidence of corruption, but identified weaknesses in screening, security checks and understanding of conduct standards.
The Commission considered that ministerial staff needed stronger governance and accountability because of their roles and exposure to corruption.
Its six recommendations to the Premier concerned recruitment screening, security clearance, induction, recurring training, annual compliance declarations and a possible staff code of conduct.
In the body's own words
- Recommendation
Introduce the requirement that all ministerial staff obtain and maintain security clearance to at least Negative Vetting Level 1.
- Recommendation
Consider developing a Ministerial Staff Code of Conduct that deals with matters including soliciting or accepting bribes and attempting to influence decisions for personal gain or to favour a third party.
Findings, opinions and statements
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.
Recommendations 6
Recommendation 1
Review existing recruitment processes for the appointment of ministerial staff to ensure current practices align with public sector guidelines.29 In particular, ensure that prospective ministerial staff are subject to pre-employment screening.
Recommendation 2
Introduce the requirement that all ministerial staff obtain and maintain security clearance to at least Negative Vetting Level 1.
Recommendation 3
Review existing induction processes for ministerial staff and ensure they include education and training on the following: ⊲ the Code of Ethics for the South Australian public sector ⊲ obligations to report conflicts of interests and pecuniary interests ⊲ corruption risks associated with the role (including recognising corruption vulnerabilities and grooming)
Recommendation 4
Introduce compulsory training for ministerial advisors every 2 years, including in the Code of Ethics, and obligations to report conflicts of interests and pecuniary interests.
Recommendation 5
Introduce a requirement that all chiefs of staff provide the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment with an annual declaration that ministerial staff have met their obligations in respect of conflicts of interests and pecuniary interest declarations, and that induction programs and compulsory training referred to in Recommendation 4 are up to date.
Recommendation 6
Consider developing a Ministerial Staff Code of Conduct that deals with matters including soliciting or accepting bribes and attempting to influence decisions for personal gain or to favour a third party.
Published responses
No published response was found.
Coverage
This publisher
- Office for Public Integrity: publishes only its annual reports (excluded); no OPI report or statement records.
- Since October 2021 the Commission does not make findings of corrupt conduct; most records have no findings.
- Government and agency responses are recorded only where the Commission's page links them or the report reproduces them; implementation status is not published by the Commission as structured data.
- Scanned reports without a text layer are not read (no OCR); their recommendations stay not_extracted.
- Recommendations are extracted only from numbered 'Recommendation N' lists; reports that set out recommendations in prose, tables or unnumbered lists keep recommendations_status not_extracted.
- Findings are extracted only from investigation reports that state them in the Commissioner's own words (Oakden 2018, Gillman 2015); public statements are not read for findings.