4.2 Civil service and integrity in the pandemic In the countries of the Americas, there is a differentiation between the institutions in charge of steering and regulating the government • To guarantee public health measures in those workplaces staff procurement processes and those responsible for promoting where government employees would not be able to work a culture of integrity in the civil service. The former normally from their homes and telecommute. pertain to finance secretariats or ministries of the economy, public function or civil service departments, authorities, or • To organize telecommuting, providing civil servants secretariats. The latter consist of government ethics offices, anti- with the necessary tools and resources and drawing up corruption commissions, anti-corruption offices or secretariats, or policies to structure telecommuting. external oversight bodies. In the context of the emergency, the institutions in charge of conducting government procurement in • To take advantage of digital skills in order to foster the six countries consulted performed their duties without any telecommuting and provide effective services to the public. additional requirements to their work plans and policies, other than the specific difficulties of operating under new operating arrangements and without any, or very low, onsite attendance at the workplace. To promote continuous learning, in particular to acquire new skills, such as the use of new technologies and ways of In these countries, most of the governments did not engage in working to perform their duties. In particular, leadership and massive recruitment of new government employees, whether management skills were key to manage the transition to new permanent career staff or temporary employees. According to working environments with integrity and in line with the values the experts who were consulted, staffing in the health sector of the institution and the public sector. At the same time, it was reinforced or reassigned, and mass recruitment was the was necessary to take up challenges in connection with the exception rather than the rule. That is why the public sector had to telecommuting modality and the related risks of undermining quickly ascertain which jobs and areas were essential, identify the integrity because of the greater interconnection between private competencies that were necessary and available, and redistribute and public spaces, such as the use of professional equipment, the workforce to meet changing demands. Several tools were working hours, confidentiality, among others. used, mostly consisting of temporary reassignments inside the ministries and the accelerated use of existing recruitment In this regard, criticism targeting government measures, when procedures. To achieve this redistribution, it was essential to there was such criticism, focused on the suitability of the identify the competencies of the employees and to ensure the measures proposed by the authorities and the capability of civil availability of tools to reassign them over a short period time. servants in charge of managing a health crisis. In addition to restructuring the workforce to address the changes In that general context, a difference must be noted between in demand, governments also had to ensure that the capacity situations where there was no new recruitment, others where of public administration was upheld to meet the government’s recruitment remained normal, and yet others where recruitment priorities and protect its civil servants. Because of that, was exceptional. Thus, when the pandemic appeared, government institutions in charge of public employment had to Argentina was already officially in a state of economic, financial, draw up new policies and instruments to do the following: fiscal, administrative, social security, tariff, health, and social Cultivating a culture of integrity in the civil service in times of crisis 30