Corruption Matters - October 2022 | Issue 60
In other news - New guidance available on ethics walls
Does your agency have both regulatory functions and a commercial interest? Are you a senior project manager who has a conflict of interest with a project? How can an agency mitigate the risk of information being inappropriately or inadvertently shared?
You may have heard of “cones of silence”, “information barriers”, “Chinese walls”, and “ethical screens”. Ethics walls have been called different terms at various times but, essentially, they can be defined as a structured information barrier that prevents the flow of restricted information between one group and another.
Depending on the context, they can be a useful measure to manage different scenarios, for example, a conflict of duties, a conflict of interest or to prevent corruption. Importantly, they also demonstrate that agencies have taken appropriate measures to protect information and prevent abuse.
The Commission has prepared guidance for agencies in considering why and when ethics walls might be used, examples of ethics walls and the elements that should be considered when designing them. For example, what information is to be restricted and who is to be covered by the wall? How can teams be separated physically and virtually, and what happens after the wall is removed?
While this publication focuses on formal ethics walls, it may be also be of general assistance in situations where an agency needs to address the risk that information is misused.
Probity aspects of ethics walls: guidance for dealing with commercial activities and other complex scenarios can be downloaded from the ICAC website here.
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