Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

A Time to Listen... A Time to Hear

The American Society for Public Administration endorses the growing public demand for improved accountability of government employees in order to achieve more efficient, effective, and ethical enforcement of the laws, and more competent conduct of the public business, recognizing that most whistle blowing results from different perceptions of accountability.

Therefore, in order to improve accountability at all levels of government - ASPA recommends that federal, state and local governments take the following actions:

1. Establish and enforce policies and procedures that clearly describe the ethical bases for public employment and the penalties for violating them.

Adherence to such codes would result in improved accountability by public employees, especially managers, for their decisions and actions. This should result in a concomitant decrease in the need for whistle blowing aimed at exposing criminal activity, abuse of process, waste, withholding or distortion of information, and other unethical or illegal behavior.

2. Establish and enforce policies and procedures for more adequately communicating to each public employee the expectations of the governmental employer with respect to job performance, ethics, accountability, rewards, penalties, and regulations.

Since well-informed and well-supervised employees reflect good management practices, individual employees who know what is expected of them may be more likely to meet accountability standards and less likely to refuse responsibility for their performance - or to choose whistle blowing as a vehicle for communicating. Workshops and other forms of training programs are useful in helping managers and their employees cope with dissent and change.

3. Establish and enforce policies and procedures for internally reporting, investigating, assessing, and acting on allegations of illegality mismanagement waste or unethical behavior.

Complaint handling offices such as inspectors general and other appropriate mechanisms should be created and adequately supported to receive, and promptly and objectively, investigate internal allegations of wrong doing in order to diminish the need for the public gesture of whistle blowing. To be effective as well as efficient, such offices must inspire the trust and confidence of both managers and employees to avoid the aura of police-state intimidation by tending first to accuse or impugn the motives of the person making the allegation.

4. Establish and enforce policies and procedures that permit and encourage legitimate dissent and constructive criticism and protect dissenters from retaliation.

Many public employees take an oath of office to uphold, obey, and enforce the law in accordance with their sworn responsibilities. Therefore, perceived violations of that oath which result in differences of opinion about wrongdoing should be viewed as manifestations of account ability, rather than as rejections of supervisory authority unless proven otherwise.

5. Create and support dissent channels to permit contrary or alternative views on policy issues to be reviewed at a higher level.

Where disaffection grows not from allegations of wrongdoing but from honest professional disagreement over policy decisions, what converts the grieved dissenter into an angry whistle blowing is often the lack of any channel for additional senior review of the policy dispute. Good public administration in any institution includes provision for such open review at higher levels. Equating productive dissent or constructive criticism with disloyalty violates democratic principles of free speech and tends to discourage accountability, creativity and standards of excellence.

Establish and enforce policies and procedures that require management to focus on the message rather than the messenger when an employee expresses either substantive dissent as a professional difference of opinion or makes a allegation of wrongdoing.

In most instances, whistle blowing nay be averted by giving serious consideration to the merits of the message and by taking appropriate and timely action. By focusing only on the assumed motivations of dissenters or whistle blowers, attention is diverted from the substance of their dissent or the merits of their allegations, to the detriment of the or-

7. Create and use program evaluation, monitoring and other oversight methods to increase and improve the availability of reliable information for decision making.

Top management needs accurate and timely information produced by competent staff who are encouraged to make recommendations and to energetically advocate them without fear of reprisal. Since an organizational pattern of absent, distorted, or unnecessarily suppressed information tends to produce demands for such information on the grounds of accountability, the systematic collection, analysis, dissemination, and use of verified facts should help to diminish or eliminate the motivation to blow the whistle.

Background

The American Society for Public Administration seeks to improve the quality of human life through more effective, efficient, compassionate, and trustworthy public service. Throughout its history, ASPA has supported improved management and program performance in all branches and among all levels of government. ASPA's commitment to excellence in government acknowledges the principles that any organization should be subject to an appeal to determine the fairness of its actions and that ultimate accountability rests with the citizenry. As such, ASPA supports the intergovernmental and institutionalized due process system which provides accountability through evaluation and oversight of the actions of public organizations and employees.

At times, however, these institutional oversight mechanisms may provide inadequate protection for the public, particularly in cases of certain types of hidden corruption, criminal activities, discrimination, or administrative excess.

Sometimes, public employees who become aware of organizational or employee activities which have potentially harmful consequences to the public face a moral dilemma. What should they do? Should they ignore the situation? Should they bring the situation to the attention of an appropriate source within the organization? Or should they bring the situation to the attention of a third party? Employees who choose to disclose previously hidden aspects of organizational and public employee activities have been called whistle blowers. The American Society for Public Administration selected whistle blowing as a subject of study because the debate over this growing phenomenon more often than not has centered on whether or not one is either for or against whistle blowing and external processes rather than focusing on its causes and remedies.

To some, whistle blowing is considered to be an ultimate expression of accountability. To others, whistle blowing is the spiteful behavior of disgruntled employees and an act of organizational disloyalty. ASPA focused on factors which tend to produce whistle blowing and the need to establish standards of accountability for whistle blowers, organizations, and the third parties which assist the whistle blowers.

Responsibilities of Public Agencies to Maintain Accountability to the Public

Federal, state, aid local governments as well as all public institutions should recongize the need to be accountable to the public by creating responsive administrative environments. All public agencies should establish and enforce policies and procedures to encourage internal reporting by employees and to assure the investigation of responsible and reasonable criticisms from employees without recrimination.

In addition, organizations should protect from retaliation responsible and conscientious public employees who, after much forethought, disclose information about situations potentially harmful to the public interest. Agencies should focus on the message rather than the messenger.

Some Obligations of Public Employees

Public employees have a serious obligation to themselves to exercise their conscience in a responsible and judicious manner. Public employees must also remember their ultimate accountability to the public, Because of the serious consequences of their actions, public employees should avoid frivolous, irresponsible, or false criticism of government.

Implementation

Given the increasing public interest in the subject, the Task Force on Whistle blowing urges prompt adoption of the statement by the ASPA Policy Issues Committee and the National Council. The task force also recommends:

1. that ASPA's president and National Council hold a press conference when appropriate concerning this statement.

2. that copies of the statement be distributed to newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and other mass communications media;

3. that the statement be published in its entirety in the Public Administration Times;

4. that copies of the statement be sent to the president, to members of Congress, and be made available to state and local governments;

5. that the statement be sent to other public interest professional associations urging them to endorse the position statement and its implementation;

6. that the president of ASPA institute appropriate procedures to evaluate the effectiveness and the Implementation of this policy and report back to the National Council in 1981.

Policy Issues Committee

Revised November 30, 1979

Adopted by the National Council on December 2, 1979