Topic Guide: Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of interest commissioners. Commissioners can play a key role in providing guidance and preventing public officials from inadvertently becoming entangled in a conflict of interest. It is advisable, particularly for legislators, to establish a permanent commissioner within the legislative assembly. The commissioner should be responsible for managing the register of legislators' interests, providing guidance, dealing with complaints and reporting to the parliamentary ethics committee.[1]  

Consultation. Conflict of interest provisions are best developed in consultation with the public officials who will be subject to them, rather than being imposed from above. This provides an opportunity for useful feedback, the possibility for officials to query aspects of the regulations they do not understand and helps internalise the central message of probity in public office.[2]  

Local government. Conflict of interest provisions usually focus on high-level decision makers such as ministers, legislators, political advisors and senior civil servants. While tackling conflicts of interest among the national-level elite is the priority for many integrity systems, officials at all levels of the state apparatus in decision-making positions with large discretionary powers should be subject to conflict of interest provisions. Once conflict of interest management systems have been successfully implemented at the top, they should gradually be expanded to local government, though at a pace which does not outstrip the capacity of oversight bodies.[3]