Corruption Risk Assessment Tool
We are developing a Corruption Risk Assessment tool. The tool will be designed for public sector agencies to identify corruption and insider threat risks within their organisation.
About the tool
The tool will support agencies, and potentially other entities, to proactively identify and assess insider threat risks presented by the nature and function of their organisations and provide guidance and education to support the mitigation of those risks.
We want to achieve:
• Better capability within agencies to detect and act on corruption risks specific to their environment. This will enable agencies to enact targeted interventions, support improved training and education for potentially at-risk staff or positions.
• Greater public confidence that the public sector is live to the risks it might encounter and has a plan to prevent them before they occur.
• Hardened defences for the public sector against those that might seek to corrupt it, from within or without.
Why this matters
Harm from corruption isn’t limited to dollar values. It damages the integrity of the public sector resulting in declining public trust in government institutions. The resulting reputational damage to New Zealand can also impact investor confidence, meaning long term economic harm that can be difficult to quantify but extends far beyond the public sector. This can have serious consequences, including eroding the integrity of New Zealand’s institutions and social licence of agencies, degradation of capability, economic damage, and compromised national security.
In 2026 the SFO released findings from the Anti-Corruption Taskforce pilot(external link), which found that some public sector agencies are underprepared to prevent or detect internal fraud or corruption.
Just as organisations are alert to risk across all parts of their business, including health and safety, financial and environmental risks, they should also be alert to the risk of corruption and insider threats. To support public sector agencies to identify corruption and insider threat risks within their organisation, the SFO is designing and making available a Corruption Risk Assessment Tool (‘the tool’). Feedback from the Anti-Corruption Taskforce pilot indicated that a practical, structured tool of this kind would be useful in supporting agencies to identify and manage corruption and insider-threat risks.
This project forms part of the Fifth National Action plan for the Open Government Partnership programme.
Have your say
The Serious Fraud Office is inviting feedback on the design of the tool and will be holding two rounds of consultation workshops between 8-19 June and 3-14 August 2026. Workshops will give participants the opportunity to review the tool's design and provide feedback throughout its development. This will help to ensure the tool is robust, practical and relevant across the system and help ensure that organisational-specific risks and perspectives are identified and, where appropriate, incorporated into the tool.
Through participation in the consultation process we hope that those involved will learn more about corruption and insider threat risks across the public sector. These insights can be used to inform initiatives at their organisations.
If you are interested in being part of the consultation process and would like to know more, please contact us on consultation@sfo.govt.nz
Relevant documents
We will continue to provide updates during the development of the tool until it is published in June 2027, so check back here to follow its progress.
Frequently asked questions
You can read more about the tool in the frequently asked questions document [PDF, 213 KB]
Milestones
Keep track of where we are at in the project timeline below.
Orange indicates completed phases.
Green indicates upcoming milestones.