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Navigating Consultant Integrity: Promoting Trust and Ethical Performance

This interim progress report delves into the challenges faced in the consultant selection process, highlighting issues of integrity, trust, and transparency. The report offers recommendations and insights on policy improvement for achieving higher ethical standards in procurement activities.

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Navigating Consultant Integrity: Promoting Trust and Ethical Performance

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  1. BIMILACI 2007 Interim Progress Report: Professional Integrity Guidance Book Promoting Integrity and Constraining Corruption in the Selection and Employment of Consultants Biennial Meeting of International Lending Agencies and the Consulting Industry May 10 -11, 2007 Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C. Chloe Schwenke, Ph.D. Lead Consultant, Center for Applied Ethics University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

  2. Professional Integrity Guidance Book • Part One ~ Executive Summary and Overview of Earlier Reports • Part Two ~ Policy Context • Part Three ~ Specific and Detailed Integrity Recommendations on Guidelines – Selection and Employment of Consultants by World Bank Borrowers • Anticipated completion of draft Guidance Book = June 30, 2007 5/11/2007

  3. Key Problems • UNSATISFACTORY RESULTS • Procurement system based on MDB Guidelines often fails to lead to well qualified, ethically motivated, timely, and cost-effective consultant services appropriate to the needs of the public • Current consultant procurement strategies are too complex, time consuming, labor intensive, and overly compliance focused • Quality and ethical performance not adequately measured or monitored 5/11/2007

  4. Key Questions ~ 1 • Guidelines: A Carrot as well as the Stick? • Who can be trusted? • Is a rational basis of trust between PA client and professional or expert consultant possible? • Ethically motivated? • Is there an appeal to professionalism? • A Flawed Process? • Do the existing Guidelines need to be revised (or rewritten) if ethical performance is to be achieved? 5/11/2007

  5. Key Questions ~ 2 • What else (outside of the Guidelines) can be done to improve procurement? • By donor institutions and MDBs? • By the public sector (Borrower)? • By professionals and experts? • By the public and civil society? • Is there a larger procurement reform agenda? • Can the Guidelines be applied to strengthen reform efforts? 5/11/2007

  6. Two Reports • Progress to date: • The “Ethics Report”: Preparation of Guidelines on How to Prevent Corruption and Promote Integrity in the Selection and Employment of Professional Consultants • The “Effectiveness Report”: World Bank Policy on Selection and Employment of Consultants: Study of its Effectiveness 5/11/2007

  7. Ethics Report’s Findings ~ 1 • Premise: Positive reinforcement (aspirational measures) + negative constraints (compliance safeguards) = improved ethical performance • Expanded role by the organized professions (including their registration boards and professional associations) • MDB + Borrowers jointly challenge the professions to demonstrate: • Leadership • Commitment to public service ideals • Willingness to hold their members accountable for ethical performance 5/11/2007

  8. The Ethics Report’s Findings ~ 2 • Implementing an aspirational approach: • Admit the problem: Many Borrower PAs are institutionally weak and growing weaker • Harness human capacity and desire to be ethical • Challenge PAs and consultants jointly to formulate measures to create a sustainable, credible, and rational trust mechanism: • To serve the public • To exemplify high professional standards • To take pride in respective important roles in development • To hold professionals and experts more accountable for the quality and success of their services, and for impacts of poor performance 5/11/2007

  9. Effectiveness Report’s Findings ~ 1 • Guidelines • Requirements are not clear or are contradictory • Emphasis on QCBS, used for 92% even though appropriate for just 40% • Cost wins ~ QCBS evaluation formula results in cost determining selection in majority of cases • Least recognized “victims” of current situation are the “good” consultants • Consultants: QCBS encourages lowest cost proposals = cutting corners • Emphasis on “least cost” = a rise in frustration levels among professionals and experts • Quality-oriented consultants abstain • Consultants abandon domestic consulting industry 5/11/2007

  10. Effectiveness Report’s Findings ~ 2 • Institutional weaknesses: • PAs failing to hire and retain “professional” procurement staff (indicates that broader procurement reforms are needed) • Double standards: • Guidelines stress transparency for consultants, yet are silent on EC transparency • Robust empirical assessment: • Procurement takes far too long, costs far too much, lacks essential fairness, and contributes to erosion of domestic consulting capabilities 5/11/2007

  11. Issues Being Examined in the Integrity Guidebook • The Public Interest • Increasing Complexity • Balancing Quality and Cost • Corruption and Integrity • Transparency and Accountability • Public-Private Partnerships • Consulting and National Development • Reforming Procurement • Political Will • Policy • Implementation 5/11/2007

  12. Roleplayers in Public Procurement • The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) • Public Sector (Borrower) • Procurement Agency (PA) • Consultants • Professionals • Other Experts • The Public • Civil Society • The General Public 5/11/2007

  13. Roleplayers: The Multilateral Development Banks ~ 1 • Setting Procurement Principles and Priorities • Fostering the Knowledge Economy: Consultants • Constraining Corruption, Fostering Integrity and Building Trust • Setting Ethical Standards • Setting Ethical Performance Expectations • Strengthening Ethical Roleplayers • Monitoring 5/11/2007

  14. Roleplayers: The Multilateral Development Banks ~ 2 • Institutional Strengthening Considerations • Leadership • Public Service Ethos • Consultant Procurement Training and Support • Capacity Building • Improving Consulting Services and Performance • Improving PA Services and Performance • Empowering Oversight Role of Civil Society 5/11/2007

  15. Roleplayers:The Public Procurement Agencies (Borrowers) ~ 1 • Policy ~ The Conducive Procurement Environment • Leadership Vision • Borrower Priorities to Strengthen Consulting Industry • Borrower Policy Implementation • Borrower Monitoring of Performance and Results • Regulatory Factors: Compliance & Aspirational • Capacity to Define and Describe Technical Requirements • Coping with Increasing Procurement Complexity 5/11/2007

  16. Roleplayers:The Public Procurement Agencies (Borrowers) ~ 2 • Legitimacy of the Procurement Process • Procurement Fairness, Accountability and Transparency • Efficiency and Responsiveness • Value and Quality 5/11/2007

  17. Roleplayers: Professionals ~ 1 • Public Service Procurement Orientation • An attractive and fair market? • Expectations of partnership and trust with client? • Proposal costs versus anticipated returns? • Competitiveness • Transparent Parameters to Balance Quality and Cost • Making the evaluation formula work • Reassurance of professional liability • Recognizing and rewarding integrity and ethical values 5/11/2007

  18. Roleplayers: Professionals ~ 2 • Professionalism • Mutual Accountability to Standards of: • Competence • Ethics • Innovation and Quality • Fair Competition • Capacity Building • Professional Training • Continuing Professional Development • Annual “In Good Standing” Certification 5/11/2007

  19. Roleplayers: Professionals ~ 3 • Institutional Identity & Oversight • Professional Associations • Professional Registration Boards • Advocacy on Public Interest Issues • Fostering a positive public image for the professions • Solidarity and internal support systems (legal, financial) to support whistleblowers and other champions of integrity • Strengthening standards of competence • Advocating for fair pay and conditions • Sanctioning ethical misconduct • Celebrating and recognizing exemplary ethical conduct 5/11/2007

  20. Roleplayers: Other Expert Consultants • Growing category as complexity intensifies • e.g. Economists, Computer/IT specialists, Management Consultants, Environmentalists • Institutionally dispersed • Lacking institutional cohesiveness • Weak solidarity or shared identity • Few formal associations • Few regulatory constraints • No formal registration requirements • No preferential (monopoly) status in the market • Not “ethical communities” • No codes of ethics or formally articulated shared values 5/11/2007

  21. Current Status: General Guidance and Recommendations ~ 1 • Identify practical ways to foster a rational basis of trust and partnership between consultants and PAs • Both parties must earn trust of the other • Avoiding stereotypes: parasitical, greedy consultants! • Create linkage: aspirational factors + compliance based approaches = improved performance 5/11/2007

  22. Current Status: General Guidance and Recommendations ~ 2 • Pursue “big picture” procurement reform driven by political will and ethical leadership • Improve evaluation committees • Professionalize public procurement of consultants 5/11/2007

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