At its plenary meeting of 23 March, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe approved an evaluation report concerning Finnish law enforcement authorities and senior government officials and ministers. GRECO recommends that the Finnish police take several measures, such as the strengthening of ethics through training.
GRECO's fifth evaluation round began in 2017, with the theme of preventing corruption and promoting integrity in central governments (top executive functions) and law enforcement agencies within member states. Finland was among the first states to be evaluated.
Measures recommended by GRECO
– The drawing up and publication of an anti-corruption policy.
– The compilation and publication of a code of conduct and the related practical measures, such as mandatory induction and training, and counselling. Particular attention should be paid to ethical leadership training.
– With respect to career-related decisions, it should be ensured that individual superiors cannot have an undue influence, and that internal conciliation or negotiation mechanisms are available.
– A streamlined system for the authorisation of secondary employment and the effective follow-up of such decisions.
– The further development of guidelines on criteria and decisions on secondary employment, and the creation of standards for situations in which a public servant is negotiating over future employment after leaving the police.
– Enhancing risk management by developing an information collection plan for corruption prevention purposes and providing for stricter internal oversight, including through regular audits of registers.
– Establishing an obligation for police officers to report corruption, and strengthening the protection of whistleblowers in this respect. The police should provide dedicated guidance and training on whistleblowing at all levels of its organisation. The obligation advocated by GRECO would be somewhat broader than current obligations, since not all activities regarded as corrupt fulfil the criteria of crime.
The police have already invested in the themes included in the recommendations
National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen welcomes the recommendations.
– The external evaluators have become well acquainted with our system and the recommendations focus on a number of issues we have already invested in. This provides a good basis from which to continue developing the police administration, says National Police Commissioner Kolehmainen.
The GRECO evaluation team visited Finland in September 2017 and interviewed representatives of the police, Customs and the Border Guard. However, GRECO limited its evaluation to the police and Border Guard, for which most of the recommendations had the same content. Finland will report on the implementation of the recommendations it received by the end of September 2019.
GRECO has evaluated Finland's anticorruption mechanisms on previous occasions. Reports on Finland can be found on the GRECO website . The reports for the previous evaluation rounds have also been translated into Finnish and Swedish.
