Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024 – Country Notes: Norway

Contextual factors

 

State structure	Executive power	Legislative system	Legal system
Unitary	Parliamentary	Unicameral	Civil law

Strategy and institutions on anti-corruption and public integrity

Norway has no single anti-corruption strategy and no central government body responsible for mitigating public integrity risks in the public sector. However, there are different institutions which have the mandate to mitigate public integrity risks in their corresponding fields. The Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance and the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development are responsible for policy-making and administration in several key areas. The Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance is responsible for government employer policy, the committee on post-public employment restrictions, security and administrative services, government services, the Central Government Communication Policy, ICT Policy and Public Sector Reform. The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development is in charge of local government finances, rural and regional policy, local administration and the conduct of elections. The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ) is the central harmonisation unit for internal control (IC) and internal audit (IA). It has a guiding and advising function and has the authority from the Ministry of Finance to administer the financial regulations. The Office of the Auditor General of Norway (OAG) is the Supreme Audit Institution and the audit agency of the Norwegian parliament – Storting. The Political Party Law Tribunal has the mandate to oversee the financing of political parties and election campaigns and check their compliance with the rules on accounting, financing and reporting. While there are no central bodies responsible for mitigating public integrity risks in lobbying and in conflicts-of-interest procedures, there are separate registers for the Storting representatives and the members of the judiciary. While the Freedom of Information Act regulates the access to information, there is no public body supervising access to public information. However, the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency gives advice to the public administration concerning the use of social media, universal design and, together with the Language Council of Norway, about plain language, with the aim of making public information more accessible.

Overview

 

Greatest strengths	Areas to improve
Political finance - implementation	Anti-corruption strategy
Corruption risk management and audit - regulation	Lobbying
Transparency of public information - implementation	Conflict of interest - regulation

Anti-corruption strategy

On average, OECD countries fulfil 45% of OECD criteria on quality of strategic framework, and 36% on implementation. However, Norway has no national anti-corruption strategy. Having a strategic framework based on evidence and outlining objectives and priorities is essential to mitigate corruption risks in the public sector.

Corruption risk management and audit

As measured against OECD standards on risk management, which include internal control and internal audit, Norway fulfils 64% of criteria on regulations compared to the OECD average of 67%. However, the country did not provide data on implementation.

Regulations define internal control and audit according to international standards, managerial responsibility for internal control and audit, and the objectives of internal control. They also establish annual internal control and audit reporting activities. The risk management framework delegates responsibility for conducting risk assessments to management, although public integrity risks are not explicitly addressed in the framework. Regulations on internal audit stipulate the independence of internal auditors but are comparatively weaker, as they do not for example contain provisions guaranteeing the access of internal auditors to all staff in an organisation or requirements for internal audit units to undergo external quality assurance.

In terms of internal audit coverage, 86% of central government bodies are covered by internal audit regulations, and 40% of these organisations were internally audited in the past five years, although these organisations correspond to those with the largest budgets. However, Norway has not provided data on the adoption of good practices for internal audit and risk management in public bodies in practice.

Lobbying

As measured against OECD standards on lobbying, Norway fulfils 25% of criteria on regulations and 0% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 35%, respectively.

While regulations establish cooling off periods for public officials, there is no regulatory framework on lobbying, nor a lobbying register. Regulating lobbying activities is important to avert capture of public policies by special interests. A regulatory framework which establishes clear definitions for lobbying and lobbying activities can help to ensure that lobbying is a useful tool for policy making. Additional disclosure requirements such as a lobbying register enhance transparency and enable effective compliance and review.

Conflict of interest

As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, Norway fulfils 44% of criteria on regulations, and 44% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 76% and 40%, respectively.

Regulations define circumstances and relationships that can lead to conflict-of-interest situations for public officials and establish the obligation to manage them. Any member of the Government, Storting, and the Supreme Court are obliged to submit an interest declaration, as a minimum upon entry and any renewal or change in public office. Moreover, all members of the Government and members of the Storting have submitted interest declarations in the past six years, and all members of the Supreme Court have submitted interest declarations in the past four years. However, verification of interest declarations is done by random sampling and not by a risk-based approach. Since January 2023, public employers may require employees in high-risk positions to register their economic interests in order to prevent potential conflicts of interest.

Political finance

As measured against OECD standards on political finance, Norway is a strong performer by fulfilling 70% of criteria on regulations and 100% of criteria in practice, compared to the OECD averages of 73% and 58%, respectively.

Regulations in Norway ban anonymous donations and contributions from foreign enterprises, foreign states, and publicly owned enterprises. Furthermore, all political parties and candidates are obliged to report their finances during electoral campaigns, and political parties must make their financial reports public. Sanctions for breaches of political finance and election campaign regulations are defined and proportionate to the severity of the offence. In practice, as an independent body, the Political Party Law Tribunal has the mandate to oversee the financing of political parties and election campaigns, has certified auditors in its payroll, and has published information on cases related to breaches of political finance regulations, investigations conducted, and sanctions issued. Furthermore, for the past five years, more than 96 % of all political parties and affiliated organisations at local and regional level (ca. 3 000 in total) have submitted annual accounts. For the past two election cycles, all political parties have submitted reports on monetary and nonmonetary contributions prior to elections within the timelines defined by national legislation. All of the aforementioned financial reports are publicly available on a single platform in a user-friendly format.

Transparency of public information

As measured against OECD standards on public information, which includes access to information and open data, Norway fulfils 33% of criteria on regulations and 62% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 62%, respectively.

The only restrictions to access to public information allowed are listed by law and are in line with the Tromso Convention, and the regulations establish the right to appeal in the case of refusal or inactivity of an administrative agency. However, information holders are not required to provide information in the requested format, and the regulations do not provide a list of datasets and mandatory information to be disclosed. In practice, the following key datasets are published online: consolidated versions of all primary laws, the state budget, the results of the last national elections, legislative proposals of the Government, ministers’ agendas, announced public tenders, the business registry, the land registry, salaries of individual senior civil servants, and asset and interest declarations of the top-two tiers of public employees in the executive branch. However, agendas of Government sessions, aggregated data on lobbying, and aggregated data on the results of public tenders are not publicly available online.