Updated: 6:16am – Parliamentary Ministerial staff are being held more accountable. For the first time they are subject to a code of conduct developed by the States Services Commission. It recognises the unique role they play and it will apply to staff working for the next Government.
Among them is the need to respect the duty of independent government agencies to carry out their responsibilities free from inappropriate influence. National Secretary Glenn Barclay said its members have had standards of integrity and conduct for a long time.
“We just want to be sure that the way they work supports the provision of free and frank advice to ministers and that they’re also now obliged to ensure that they think about the reputation of state services as a whole.”
He said the Public Service Association has been pushing for it. “There are protections for them in this as well, because they are subject to a whole lot of pressures from a range of sources then they should now be able to say well look I can’t really do that because that would infringe the standards of integrity and conduct that has been issued by the commissioner.”
-Newstalkzb
