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UN Public Service Awards 2017

Category 2: Promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in Public Service
Initiative: PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Project
1. What was/were the problem(s) before the implementation of the initiative?
The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) is a state-owned enterprise under the
Ministry of Interior, Thailand. PEA’s missions are to provide and distribute electricity to 74
provinces throughout the country except Bangkok and vicinities. PEA is working to serve its
customers’ needs in terms of satisfaction in quality of services provided. PEA perceives itself
as a changing and innovative organization that has to continuously improve the organization
with responsibilities for society and environment as well. PEA has severed around 18.55
million customers and has 30,895 officers and 933 PEA local offices (PEA offices class 1-3 =
186 offices, PEA branch offices 288 offices and PEA sub-branch 459 offices) with a value of
total assets 337,292 million baht ( as of September 2016).
Since established, 56 years, PEA has a main mission to electrify to all households in
rural areas to improve their living standards that help promoting the economic growth and
building basic need foundations of the country. Moreover, PEA has not only concerned on
the business efficiency and stabilities but also environmental and social responsibility
including ethics, transparency and accountability. The organization also discloses essential
information to public and supports the interaction network with stakeholders, to share and
exchange their comments and mutual experiences.
PEA has forecasted the electricity demand over the next 5 years will increase every
year by 2-3 percent for year 2016-2020. Consequently, PEA has continuously been improving
electricity distribution systems to serve the on-going electricity demand in Thailand.
As a result, PEA has created master plans and projects incorporated in the national
economic and social development plan in compliance with government policies and growth
demand.
Thailand has been developing economy, society and people’s living standards in all
aspects, especially people in rural areas that could not access to public services because of
their poverty. The extension of public facilities is the main policy the Thai government for
example water supplies, electricity and transportation. The problem is most government
organisations are monopoly which means people merely rely on them. It is no denying that
they are less competitive and have fewer improvements on their management systems and
other related processes. Mostly, these organisations have complicated chains of command
and hierarchical organizational structure. Likewise, people as a service recipient from that
type of monopolistic entities are rarely authorised to access to essential information
or to examine their operations.
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From the long-lasting problem mentioned above, it is evidenced by the growing

number of complaints both in terms of service and corruption from the collected data until
year 2013. This may cause the corruption and bribe problem in order to meet their need as
fast as possible or even they have to pay money to facilitate their transactions. The most
obvious evidence is Thailand’s Corruption Perception Index score 35 out of 100.
In conclusion, Thais have encountered the following problems:
1. Information and public service access
2. Dissatisfaction with information disclosure and services rendered
3. Corruption, inequity and unfairness from public services and lack of opportunity
in examining public sector’s operations
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2. What was the solution?

PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Project is formulated for 3 purposes “Information
Disclosure” for stakeholders, “Citizen-centric Service” to resolve the dissatisfaction of
information disclosure and the quality of services received and “Citizen Participation”
to open for process inspection and to share and exchange their comments and mutual
experiences.
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3. How did the initiative solve the problem(s) and improve people’s lives
The project was initiated in the middle of 2015. PEA formulated 4 standards and
5 areas as a guideline for implementing the project all over the organization.
Standard 1: Good corporate governance
Indicator: 1. Executive’s determination, activity participation and act of role model in
promoting transparency to the stakeholders
2. PEA’s information center in compliance with National Information disclosure
Standard
Standard 2: Fair Operating Practices to all groups of stakeholders
Indicator: 1. Working processes shall adhere to Service Level Agreement: SLA
e.g. power outage notification, bill payment, meter installation and more.
2. Procurement disclosure process in compliance with National Procurement
Disclosure Law
Standard 3: Compliant Management
Indicator: 1. The number of complaints per year
2. The effective response within the pre-determined time
Standard 4: Anti-corruption Practices
Indicator: 1.Anti-corruption yearly plan
2. Transparency network management to encourage outside members to be
in the network for mutual activities.
The project has proven its abilities to solve the following problems:
1. Information Disclosure
The project aims to disclose the important information of the organization to
people in many issues such as customer service transactions according to Service Level
Agreement: SLA, procurement information for suppliers , compliant management approach and
more. PEA is determined to reveal all important information than what the laws and regulations
require. This is to express PEA’s determination to facilitate people’s access to public information
by using these 2 principles:
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1.1 More transparent

To disclosure all essential information to meet law’s requirements and people’s
expectations
1.2 Accessible
People can get access to PEA’s Information through many channels: PEA Call
Center, www.pea.co.th and social media
2. Citizen-centric service
This project resolves the problem of dissatisfaction of information disclosure and the
quality of services received by people. The project is aiming to make PEA to be a citizen-
focused service provider with citizen-centric services. The foremost characteristic of a
customer-centric service is to be “responsive service”. PEA thus formulated the standards of
working process and servicing people for employees to apply as follows:
2.1 Internal work process
Service Level Agreement: SLA (Working Standards between departments) e.g.
Bill payment process, installation of an electric meter, electric power outage etc.
2.2 External work process
This defines “customer service standards” as a guideline for rendering each type
of customer service. E.g. electric meter sizing, electricity expansion petition process etc.
3. Citizen Participation
The project also encourages citizen participation to serve demand for “anti-corruption,
fairness in services provided, and to inspect the operations of government organizations”
The project is resolute to foster citizen participation to keep watching the operations
of PEA. People can do so by applying a membership of “Transparency network”. The main
objective of the network is preventing and suppressing corruption. The network will arrange
many workshops and activities e.g. exchanging the ideas and suggestion on corruption issues,
reporting any potential corruption offences found within PEA.
In conclusion, the project has improved internal operations and processes which
have the impact on people in order to receive the information and services fairly and
transparently. People will receive services with great quality regardless of their financial
status, backgrounds, genders, races. Likewise, PEA takes the principles of international human
rights (e.g. Human Dignity, equality and non-discrimination, Universality, Participation and
inclusion, accountability and the rule of law) into account for better fair operating practices.
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4. In which way is the initiative creative and innovative?

The project is widely implemented throughout the organization for improving the
PEA’s information disclosure considered “Process Innovation” for transparency purpose.
This transparency-based project is realistically measureable and evaluable because of the
following features:
1. The implementation of the Project is planned to cover all 933 PEA local offices
by the following timeframe:
- Year 2015-2016 , the project was executed for 186 PEA class 1-3 offices
- Year 2017, to expand the project to cover the rest 747 of PEA branch and
sub-branch offices.
2. PEA formulated PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Standards to be used as
guidelines for all PEA offices.
3. Evaluation Committee 3 levels :
- Organizational/ Regional / District Evaluation Committee
PEA was awarded the prize of “State owned enterprise with the best
transparency index score” supported by the National Counter Corruption Office (NCC).
The outstanding reasons for winning the award are as follows:
1. Using valid and comprehensively analyzed information.
2. Have formulated solid objectives, goals, practical working procedures.
3. Have the proper and achievable implementation timeframe
4. Being collective action that all employees can take part in the project.
5. Have an effective evaluation system to measure the progress and results of
the project.
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5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by
this initiative?

PEA has considered a number of factors to establish the project as follows:

Outside Factors:
1. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, Buddhist Era 2550 (2007) sections 56-62
(Rights to Information and Petition) states that “A person shall have the right to receive
and to get access to public information in possession of a government organization and
have the right to present a petition and to be informed of the result of its consideration
within the appropriate time.
2. National anti-corruption Strategy emphasizes on the principles of transparency,
fairness and anti-corruption in business operations.
3. Government organizations shall govern themselves fairly and transparently.
The employees in the organizations shall have ethics, virtue, and morality in their mind.
4. Thailand’s Corruption Perceptions Index Year 2016 of 35 out of 100 reported by
Transparency International. The index of 35 is considered relatively low among ASEAN
countries. This reflects the corruption problem has existed in Thailand for years.
5. Integrity & Transparency Assessment index: ITA index by the National Counter Corruption
Office (NCC) as a tool to measure the transparency level in the government organizations.
Inside Factors:
1. Organisational strategy and Executive policy
PEA’s Management and Improvement policy emphasizes on “Sustainable development”
: Good corporate governance, code of conduct, Operations with transparency and no-corruption ,
building a pilot PEA office that operates with Transparency and expand to other PEA branch
offices, developing Human resources both soft and hard skills, enhancing the citizen participation.
2. Executives and employees’ willingness and cooperation to instill transparency in
routine working procedures.
The size of population that is affected by the project
1. 18.5 million Thais as PEA’s customers will be provided services fairly and transparently
2. 30,000 Executives and employees as a service provider will perform their work with
transparency
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6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Project has utilized specific strategies to achieve the
pre-determined goals as follows:
Strategy implementation
1. Executives as “a Role Model” for employees
PEA executives are willing to sign a promise of anti-corruption practices among
Board of directors and subordinates in order to demonstrate a commitment to
embracing and applying the practices. Also, the signing helps promoting good sense and
atmosphere. Their subordinates are willing to adhere to the anti-corruption practices
along with their boss. Moreover, the executives are encouraged to participate all the
meetings about transparency, ethics and morality issues.
2. Initiate “a Pilot Project”
Initially, PEA launched a pilot project on “Integrity and Transparency Office”
in Rangsit Branch Office, Pathumthani province. The pilot project was analyzed and
applied to the “PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Standards” to expand the project to
every PEA branch office. Pros and Cons were included into the standards as well for
creating better version.
3. Knowledge and experience Sharing
PEA has held a number of meetings and workshops along the way the standards
has been used to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness.
4. Rewarding
As a motive for employees to maintain the PEA’s standards, PEA will present
a certification guaranteeing that the PEA office has passed the assessment by the PEA
Integrity and Transparency Project’s committee.
Essential Resources for the project
1. Human resources
1.1 Integrity and Transparency Project Assessment Committee.
Duty: To assess whether the current working procedures of the PEA office adhere to
the standards e.g. Procurement processes should strictly comply with standard 2
(Procurement Standard) of PEA Integrity and Transparency Standards.
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1.2 Executives and Employees

Duty: To govern, facilitate and propel the operations of the project within the
organisation.
2. Information Technology Resources
In assessing the PEA office with the PEA’s standards, PEA has used various
Information Technology Systems assisting the assessment to increase the efficiency and
eliminate biases of the committee that can potentially cause the unfairness in the assessment
process.
IT systems were used such as SAP program (for procurement and SLA), e-one portal
(for compliant management ), Smile box (After-service customer satisfaction)
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7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and its
implementations?
Key stakeholders contributing to the success of the project are as follows:
1. Executives and Employees
Duty: Executives and Employees are aware to work with transparency; to disclose
information as required by the stakeholders and to render customer-based services.
The main concern is to adjust normal working procedures to adhere to PEA’s project
4 standards 5 areas.
Feedback: The percentage of employees’ awareness in good corporate governance,
code of conduct in business operations is 88.66 in 2015 to 90.18 in 2016 (after the
implementation of the project). The evidence proving the success of the project is that
PEA has higher scores on Customer Service Satisfaction, Corruption-free in workplace and
the level of ethics rated by PEA’s customers. The outstanding achievement is the higher
score on Integrity & Transparency Assessment (ITA), assessed by the National
Anti-Corruption Commission. Especially, in transparency and anti-corruption index, PEA
earned nearly 100 percent on the assessment.
2. People
Duty: People get benefits from accessing relevant information of PEA such as
customer service, working procedures and communication channels. They can apply to
be a member of Transparency Network.
Feedback: People are treated fast, fairly and equally which will help reduce any
potential incidents of corruption. The outstanding achievement is the higher score on
ITA, assessed by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
3. Business Partners and Investors
Duty: Business Partners and Investors are well informed about procurement-related
things in which they involved. This aims to reveal all key information (e.g. medium price,
specifications, bidders and the winner).
Feedback: Disclosure of all important information is intended to build the trust
among bidding parties and to ensure the existence of fairness in any procurement
bidding transactions. This can be traced by the better score of procurement satisfaction
rated by PEA’s business partners.
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8. What were the most successful OUTPUTS and why was the initiative effective?
The project has incurred improvements in working procedures as follows:
1. Information Disclosure Process Improvements in the following processes in order be
more transparent
1.1 Customer Service Process
Standard 2 : Every PEA branch office posts notification showing service steps, the
cost of each service rendered, service timeframe in an easily-noticeable point in the office
e.g. cost of meter installation, electricity expansion and bill payment etc. By doing so,
customers will know exactly how much service cost they will have to pay with no price rip-
offs. Consequently, this can prohibit any potential incidents of corruption because everyone
is blatantly informed on the costs of all types of customer service transactions.
1.2 Compliant Management Process
Standard 3: In order to facilitate customer’s petition process, PEA offices will post
the executives’ telephone numbers. People, who have found an incident of corruption, both
committed by PEA employees and PEA-related matters, are able to apprise directly to the
relevant and authorized executive about the finding. Then, the executive handles the
incident. PEA has augmented the number of communication channels for its customers to
easily file a request or petition. Besides, PEA also published a handbook of compliant
management to be used as a standard manual throughout the organisation.
1.3 Procurement Process
Standard 2 requires that a PEA office that is carrying a procurement transaction
shall reveal necessary information about that procurement transaction to bidding parties.
Such information is medium price of the bidding and its methods of calculation, the name of
the winner in the bidding and the criterion used to judge the winner. The information shall
be posted on the PEA’s website in order for the bidding parties to examine for the sake of
transparency.
2. As planned, all 186 PEA Class 1-3 Offices were certified as a PEA’s Integrity and
Transparency Office within 2016. PEA then planned to expand the project to cover the rest
of PEA 747 branch/sub-branch offices across the country. The ultimate objective of the
project is to apply the 4 standards 5 areas to all PEA’s offices in order to instill transparency
into employees.
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9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
Along the way the project has been being implemented, PEA have encountered
numerous different both major and minor obstacles in regard to specific area. To deal with
those impediments, PEA has arranged consecutive meetings and workshops to discuss and
brainstorm ideas from staff that have real experiences in order to seek for possible
solutions and potential suggestions.
Internal Obstacles
1. Employees’ Understanding in good governance , morality and transparency
Due to the enormous number of PEA employees, the dissemination and transfer of
knowledge in good governance, morality and transparency to every employee is arduous.
Solutions:
- Determined Executive as a role model for his employees to express his great
interest in embracing and applying best practices of the principles of
transparency. E.g. they frequently attend transparency-promoting activities
supported by any parties such as the National Anti-Corruption Commission,
Thai government and anti-corruption networks and more.
- PEA’s executives organize events that help boosting good governance,
morality and transparency scheme to occur in the organization.
2. PEA’s Organisational structure
The complexity of organisational structure, branch offices across the country, is
difficult to control the operations of each office to be in line with the standards
Solutions:
- PEA has created effective management / controlling and checking /
evaluation approaches
- To organize competition, as a motive, between PEA Offices in different
regions/ areas. The competition is to measure the efficiency of each office
in applying the PEA’s 4 standards 5 areas in real practice. There will be
an award to those who receive the highest score.
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10. What were the key benefits (OUTCOMES) directly resulting from the initiative for people?
The project has contributed many benefits to neither PEA nor all groups of The Thais.
For PEA
1. PEA’s Integrity & Transparency Assessment(ITA) by the National Counter
Corruption Office (NCC) has consecutively increased from 2014 – 2016 (year 2014
: 77.87 percent, year 2015 : 89.86 percent and year 2016 : 92.76 percent)
The index is rated by the NCC, a designated agency, to assess the level of
Integrity & Transparency of all Thai government organizations.
2. PEA was rated as one of the top 10 participating state-owned enterprises in years
2014 and 2015. It climbed up its rank to the top 5 in year 2016. The PEA’s higher
index exhibits that PEA is strongly determined to work on promoting Integrity
& Transparency to all stakeholders.
For the Thais and the country
1. PEA, as the biggest electricity utility of the country with 18.5 million customers, is
running the project with the hope to ameliorate living standards. The ultimate
objective of the project is to establish the trust from the people and positive
attitudes towards government organisations. PEA is devoted itself to service the
Thais fairly, equally, transparently and accountably. Also, the organization
is resolute to work on preventing and suppressing corruption. The proof of PEA’s
determination on integrity, transparency and anti-corruption is the average
percentage of the ITA index of 92.03 (between 2014 - 2016). The number of
complaints from PEA’s customer is also declining every year.
2. People are serviced with fairness, equity and equality.
3. The project is a part of national anti - corruption programmes that assists the
country in the reduction of corruption offences.
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11. Did the initiative improve integrity and/or accountability in public service?
The project is planned to expand its implementation to cover all PEA’s branch
offices. The effects are the increased levels of integrity, accountability and transparency.
Hence, the project has expected the following results:
1. The project is to serve the needs of the Transparent Society in Thailand. The used
Indicators to measure transparency in PEA are as follows:
- Efficiency of customer compliant responses within the given time (30 days) is
more than 90 percent
- Overall customer Satisfaction index is 83.44 percent in 2015 and 84.40 percent
in 2016
2. The increase in Thailand’s Corruption Perception Index or CPI index rated by
Transparency International (TI) as the fact that PEA is one of Thai utility state enterprises
whose anti-corruption score is measured and is included in Thailand’s CPI as well.
3. People will experience the best services from the government organizations. That is
they will receive customer service with the great care and fairness; have the chance
to get access to public information as necessary. Together, they can partly exercise
a control over the operations of the organizations.
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12. Were special measures put in place to ensure that the initiative benefits women
and girls and improve the situation of the poorest and most vulnerable?
PEA has systematically provided the project with effective evaluation/ assessment
systems and designated people in charge of running the project. The project’s committees
have routinely checked the project’s progress to see if there are any potential obstacles that
need to be tackled immediately and also the committees have timely reviewed
the impediments and recommendations from the staff who work on the project of each office.
They then use the proceeds to improve the PEA’s 4 standards 5 areas which affect working
processes of PEA’s offices. After all, the improved working processes will impact the
stakeholders’ interests and satisfaction. The examples of the improved working processes are:
1. Correct and timely procurement information posted on the PEA’s website for
business partners to check real time.
2. Controlling IT systems used to check the efficiency of working processes.
3. Disclosure of customer service details at the service point in the PEA office.
Moreover, the key benefits that are derived from the project are that employees’
awareness on the importance of customer-centric service and on the accountability of
disclosing information which have the impact on people’s lives.
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13. Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?

The project’s success has been continuously measured by using the method of
“Internal Evaluation” that is consisted of 2 levels of internal assessment committees:
organizational and regional levels. The committees are responsible for assessing the selected
PEA branch office by using the PEA’s 4 Standards 5 areas measurement. After the selected
PEA office has been assessed and certified, the committee then forms a follow up
evaluation if the office can maintain the quality of PEA’s 4 Standards 5 areas every year after
the first assessment. Other evaluation systems are as follows:
1. Organizational/ Regional / District Follow up Evaluations have been formulated and
have been set as Key Performance Indicator (KPI) individual and organizational levels.
2. The PEA branch office which has been certified by the organizational and regional
committees will be presented a certification letter for being able to pass the
PEA’s 4 Standards 5 areas measurement.
3. PEA annually holds an awarding ceremony for PEA functions which can
outperform others in terms of maintaining and applying the PEA’s Integrity and
Transparency Standards into real practice. The ceremony is named “the best
practice function”. The award is given to the outperforming functions, both from
headquarter and regional office, which can best improve the function’s working
procedures by applying the PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Standards.
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14. Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?

PEA published the handbook of PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Standards which
details indicators with their description used as guidelines for PEA offices/departments
to easily follow and make use of them. The indicators are susceptible of improvement,
adjustable to suit with different needs of each PEA office.
The project is sustainable because of the 3 reasons. First, there is an annual revision
of the PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Standards. The goal of the revision is to shift a set of
specific working processes to become routine work which means that they are not required
to be assessed by the PEA standards. Second, PEA has published annual progress reports in
order to exhibit what is and is not achieved during the year and the solutions to the
obstacles discovered during the project’s operations. The last is that there is annual Follow
up assessment with evaluation systems to ensure the certified PEA Offices are maintaining
the standards properly.
The project is transferable in terms of lessons learned through knowledge
management system, various workshops and networks. Moreover, in-house visits from other
utilities in Thailand including Asian countries can be considered as a great transfer.
These methods lead to sustainable development in the future.
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15. What are the lessons learnt and in which way can the initiative promote sustainable
development?
The PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Project intends to instill virtue and ethics in
routine working procedures for the sake of transparency. Having the PEA’s Integrity and
Transparency Standards is to build transparency awareness into all levels of executives,
officers and customers. The consistence of working with transparency will gradually become
an organizational culture in the sense that employees will automatically perform their tasks
on the basis of transparency, fairness, equity and customer-centered servicing. The project
changes what is previously abstract to be concrete by formulating the PEA’s Integrity and
Transparency Standards which can be realistically applied to real working procedures.
Likewise, PEA has recruited volunteers both within and outside the organization to run the
project. They share and exchange their ideas and thoughts towards the project. PEA thinks
that every organization should employ the theory of transparency as a basis for their work.
The work with transparency, together with well-designed monitoring and evaluating systems,
can serve people well. During the period of building what is called “transparency” within the
organization, it needs participation and constructive interaction among all groups of
stakeholders. Finally, people will receive the most benefits from running the government
organizations with transparency. As a result, awareness of virtue and ethics is gradually
formed.
The PEA’s Integrity and Transparency Project‘s role to promote sustainable
development
The project fosters 3 elements of sustainable development as follows:
1. Promote Economic Growth
The result of the project is a supporting part of the national reduction of
corruption offences. PEA, as a Thai state-owned enterprise, plays an important role in
promoting transparency in the workplace. Then, it impacts directly the national anti-
corruption image. Enriching the country with transparency and fair competitiveness creates
a good investment atmosphere which, in turn, drawing a number of foreign investors.
All results in the strengthening in Economic Growth.
2. Promote Social Development
The project plays a significant role in promoting Social Development for
the following reasons. First, applying the PEA standards to all PEA offices is a key driver that
helps reducing the number of complaints and corruption incidents. The next reason
is disclosing essential information to all stakeholders will be a tool to reduce unfairness in
services rendered and to faster the rate of response to the people’s needs.
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3. Promote Environmental Sustainability

Originated from the corruption problem, the project supports PEA’s good
corporate governance practices. The standards will reinforce the use of existing work
procedures to comply with international laws and good corporate governance.
In conclusion, the project helps to promote the sustainable development
between organization and people. The project creates fair operating practices in every
aspect; people will be treated fairly and get access to essential information as they need to
know.