An ethics audit examines an organization's ethics and compliance programs. The document discusses conducting an ethics audit and provides a 10-step checklist for good governance that can be used to develop an ethics audit. The checklist includes having an articulate council plan, developing policies to achieve goals, engaging the community, managing the CEO, focusing council meetings on strategic issues, balancing representative and corporate governance, stewardship, managing relationships, advocacy, and ethics.

1. Examine the significant values of conducting an ethics audit in an
organization.
“ Auditing of Organizational Ethics and Compliance Programs” Please respond to the
following:Examine the significant values of conducting an ethics audit in an organization.
Select five (5) areas that you would focus on if you have to conduct an ethics audit, and
provide a rationale for your selections.Read the article titled, “ 10 Steps to Good
Governance,” located below. Next, develop a checklist for an ethics audit that incorporates
the ten (10) steps identified in the article. Provide a rationale for your response.10 steps to
good governance.What does a golfer, tennis player or cricketer (or any other professional
sportsperson) focus on to achieve high performance? They nearly always give the same
answer: “ Repeat my process (that is the process they have practised a million times) –
replicate it under real pressure and trust in my ability” That’ s why Matthew Lloyd throws
the grass up under the roof at Etihad Stadium. It is why Ricky Ponting taps the bat, looks
down, looks up and mouths “ watch the ball” . It’ s unnecessary for Matthew Lloyd to toss
the grass. There’ s no wind under the roof – it’ s simply a routine that enables him to
replicate his process under pressure. Ricky Pointing knows you have to watch the ball.
Ponting wants the auto pilot light in his brain to fl ick on as he mutters “ watch the ball” .
High performance in sport is achieved through focusing on your processes, not the scores. It
is absolutely no different in local government. Our business is governance and we need to
be focusing very hard on our governance processes. We need to learn these processes,
modify them when necessary, understand them deeply, repeat them under pressure and
trust in our capabilities to deliver. If we do that, the scores will look after themselves. I want
to share with you my ten most important elements in the governance process. Let me fi rst
say that good governance is the set of processes, protocols, rules, relationships and
behaviours which lead to consistently good decisions. In the end good governance is good
decisions. You could make lots of good decisions without good governance. But you will
eventually run out of luck – eventually, bad governance process will lead to bad decisions.
Consistently good decisions come from good governance processes and practices. Good
governance is not only a prerequisite for consistently good decisions, it is almost the sole
determinant of your reputation. The way you govern, the ‘ vibe’ in the community and in
the local paper about the way you govern is almost the sole determinant of your reputation.
Believe me, if reputation matters to you, then drive improvements through good
governance. So here are the ten core elements:1. THE COUNCIL PLAN: An articulate council

2. plan is a fundamental fi rst step to achieving your goals. It is your set of promises to your
community for a four-year term. Unfortunately, there are too many wrong plans: • Claytons
Plans – say too little and are too bland. Delete the name of the council from these plans and
you can’ t tell whose it is! There’ s no ‘ vibe’ at all. • Agreeable Plans – where everyone
gets their bit in the plan. There’ s no sense of priorities, everyone agrees with everything in
the plan and we save all the real fi ghts and confl icts to be fought out one by one over the
four-year term. • Opposition-creating Plans – we don’ t do this so often but we sometimes
‘ use the numbers’ to enable the dominant group of councillors to achieve their goals and
fail to accommodate the non-dominant group’ s agenda at all. Accordingly, we create an
opposition and assign these councillors to the opposition benches for the council term. An
articulate council plan is the least you owe your citizens.2. POLICY DEVELOPMENT: As a
sector we undertake too little policy development which supports the achievement of our
strategic goals. Yet goals or objectives are what we want to achieve. For example, economic
prosperity, environmental sustainability, community safety and cohesion are all goals.
Strategies are simply ideas on how to achieve goals. For example, if economic prosperity is
our goal then attracting new investment is one of the ‘ get there’ strategies. Policies are
council ‘ rules’ or ‘ boundaries’ that establish a specifi c treatment of a general
circumstance. For example, if our goal is economic prosperity and our strategy is
investment attraction then our policy might be “ no rates for fi ve years for new businesses
employing more than 50 people” . There is much too little policy development in the pursuit
of council goals.3. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: We all make mistakes in this area, but here
are my fi ve top tips: (a) It works best when underpinned by a previously articulated and
understood strategic vision – • People need understand where we are headed before they
are comfortable discussing how we get there. • The strategic vision, the big picture, creates
legitimacy for the many decisions, some controversial, along the journey. (b) There is no
place for spin. This is all about transparency – it’ s not so much what we decided at last
week’ s council meeting but why we reached that decision. There are four reasons to
engage – • Are we keeping promises (accountability)? • Are we grasping new
opportunities (leadership)? 18 | GN | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010 STEPS TO GOOD
GOVERNANCE You know that good governance is important, but how does your council get
there? Philip Shanahan has some simple solutions. [Vision 2010.] 1S T0EPS G OV E R N A N
C E FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010 | GN | 19 • Can people infl uence decisions (participation)? •
Can people access services and opportunities (access and inclusion)? (c) Repetition and
simplicity – we compete for people’ s attention in this marketplace. When you are sick of
telling them, they’ ve just started listening. (d) Be clear about the engagement you seek. Use
an accredited model like the International Association for Public Participation’ s system to
match the kind of community input you are really seeking with the engagement strategy
you are employing. (e) Be multi faceted. All the tools at our disposal are appropriate in
different situations. Try using Twitter, blogging or just delivering an A4-sheet to every
home in a street about to be reconstructed to tell them how much it costs, who is the
contractor, why the street needs a total makeover and who to ring with problems.4. CEO
MANAGEMENT: Some still don’ t understand the fundamental importance of properly
managing the CEO. There is absolutely no place for ‘ folksy’ arrangements. And those who

3. treat CEO performance management light-heartedly or without rigour don’ t understand
the power of the process to achieve real results.5. COUNCIL MEETINGS: The single most
important governance activity which forges a governance reputation is the council
meetings. They create the governance vibe in your municipality. Some tips: (a) Fill each
agenda with strategic, broad issues straight from the council plan. If people aren’ t talking
about the issues in the pub, why are these issues on your agenda? I get annoyed when
people congratulate themselves on a quick council meeting – aren’ t there any problems in
those municipalities? Quality agendas need quality planning and preparation. (b) Every
council meeting should demonstrate who is in charge – by the way, councillors are – so: •
Staff don’ t talk much. • No ‘ received’ or ‘ to be noted’ recommendations – every report
must invite councillor intervention. • Interventions from councillors need to be organised –
who is the council ‘ whip’ ? • Every report includes sound expert advice, information and
evidence. • Always be briefed, agree on no surprises or ambushes.6. REPRESENTATIVE
GOVERNANCE: Most thinking about governance is about corporate governance –
councillors acting as a council. However, the electoral system seems to mimic state and
federal governments – councillors feel like a representative. Citizens treat councillors as a
representative. They reckon they are a constituent. Local governments must develop
sophisticated systems and protocols that enable councillors to handle constituent
representations. However, those systems and protocols need to protect and enhance
corporate governance – not undermine it.7. STEWARDSHIP AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT:
Councillors have an obligation to act in the long-term best interests of the municipality.
That’ s stewardship. So: • Monitor progress • Manage assets • Leave the municipality in
better state than you found it • Understand the long term implications of decisions •
Manage risks • Strive to improve service effectiveness and effi ciency.8. RELATIONSHIPS:
Relationships are usually affected by behaviours. Where behaviour causes collateral
damage to relationships we often get people in the decision making process ‘ playing the
man not the ball’ . That is, being in confl ict with a person instead of their opinion. Poor
relationships, regrettably, usually result in lousy decisions. Councillors and their colleagues
are all on the government benches – relationships usually matter.9. ADVOCACY: It’ s very
important to your community. We already know that a significant improvement in your
community’ s rating of your advocacy effort will almost always be accompanied by
improved ratings for all of your services and your overall performance. Advocacy works
best when it comes from previous articulated strategic positions. In other words, if
something is really important to your community, it ought to be in your council plan. ‘ Left
fi eld’ advocacy is seldom appreciated and sometimes a downright failure.10. ETHICS: This
is obvious. If they think you are dodgy, your good governance reputation is in tatters. If in
some circumstance you feel confl icted, remember two things. Firstly, how would you feel if
the whole story was on the front page of the local paper – except your side of the story.
Secondly, use your instincts and intuition to help you decide what is best. Then check the
rules very carefully. If you only look at the rules, you’ re bound to get confused and miss the
point. So those are my ten key concepts. Good governance isn’ t so hard – it just deserves
our careful attention. “ WE NEED TO LEARN THESE PROCESSES, MODIFY THEM WHEN
NECESSARY, UNDERSTAND THEM DEEPLY, REPEAT THEM UNDER PRESSURE AND TRUST

4. IN OUR CAPABILITIES TO DELIVER.” PHILIP SHANAHAN IS A FORMER CEO OF DAREBIN
CITY COUNCIL. HE HAS WORKED IN LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT FOR 30 YEARS
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