Integrity and misconduct in public office

There is a growing interest among academics and practitioners in public integrity, as the problems of misconduct never go away. There are myriad reasons why this is the case. This chapter explores two specific aspects of public integrity: first, the definitional uncertainty around what misconduct in public office is; and second, the wide range of institutional and organizational variations in ways of addressing misconduct. In so doing the chapter will present two particular approaches - legalistic and institutional - drawing on examples from Hong Kong, the UK, and New Zealand. It will briefly consider how successful legal approaches can be on their own. A multilayered anti-corruption approach is considered to be better; and although New Zealand is widely considered to be relatively free of governmental corruption, a common law of misconduct in public office could address activities which, while not hard-core corruption, nevertheless corrode manifest institutional integrity.