Integrity in Action Program

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

While the stakes may be different, a comprehensive ethics and compliance program is just as important in the public sector as in private industry. However, not many counties have robust programs of this nature. The County of San Diego’s Office of Ethics and Compliance (OEC) underwent a restructure which included combining its former investigative functions with functions of the Health and Human Services Agency Compliance Office to create a comprehensive ethics and compliance program – we call it Integrity in Action. This enterprise-wide ethics and compliance function is a one-stop shop that reports directly to the County’s Chief Administrative Officer. The overall goal of the program is to get everyone thinking about ethics, promote an ethical culture and ultimately, increase informal employee inquiries and decrease formal complaints by infusing ethics as part of our organizational culture. The Integrity in Action program is taking us there by addressing ethical and compliance matters, implementing the County’s Code of Ethics and developing policies, programs and trainings that promote ethics and compliance. This program has increased the number of employees who are aware of, and have used or will use its resources in the future. Successful outreach, training and marketing can be attributed to this increase.