Head of CSU’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and team leader for the report, Professor Seumas Miller, said that while public service managers were well aware of the increased threat of corruption and crime through greater use of information technology in governments, some managers were not doing enough to address the problem.

The report was developed from comprehensive research completed earlier this year with public service managers located throughout NSW – from small rural shire councils to large State Government agencies.

The NSW Government is currently using parts of the report to help assess the risk of electronic corruption in various areas of the public service, commencing with a workshop held last month to assess the NSW Government licensing project.

“Many senior public service managers leave security issues in information technology (IT) wholly up to IT managers, viewing ‘eCorruption’ as a computer problem needing a technical solution,” Professor Miller said.

“However, the research indicated that the problem needs more comprehensive risk management that addresses organisational, legal, ethical and educational issues as well as technical concerns.

“Managers must develop anti-corruption and fraud plans that address both technical and behavioural issues.”

The CSU researchers received 1 000 responses from online surveys which were sent to managers. Results were supplemented by information from over 200 telephone interviews, two focus groups and nearly 50 personal interviews.