Welcome

to the website of the Expert Commission of the German Public Corporate Governance-Modelcode!
Here you will find information on the Modelcode, which can be downloaded from this website free of charge, as well as information on the Expert Commission.

Modelcode | Good governance and responsible management in public administrations and state- and municipal-owned enterprises (SOEs) are of particular importance to the state and society. This requires regulation that satisfies all requirements and has sufficient acceptance among all groups of actors. The German Public Corporate Governance-Modelcode (G-PCGM) includes principles for responsible control, management and supervision of and in SOEs that are considered relevant in practice and science as well as references to legal regulations and requirements. As a guideline, the G-PCGM offers systematically developed support for the development or revision of a public corporate governance code in public authorities.

Download English version of German Public Corporate Governance-Modelcode (G-PCGM) in PDF format
Working with the G-PCGM on site in public authorities:
Download English version of German Public Corporate Governance-Modelcode (G-PCGM) in Word format

Public corporate governance | The aim of public corporate governance is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of public sector organisations in the performance of public tasks and to ensure the public interest and appropriate public influence. The various roles of the public sector as owner, task manager/ guarantor, producer, legislator, regulator and customer are a particular challenge. Conflicts of interest may exist, for example, between the role of guarantor, which is geared towards the fulfilment of tasks, and the role as owner, which may be geared towards profitability objectives. These objectives demand not only legality, but also ethically sound, self-responsible behaviour and a continuous engagement with the practiced organisational or corporate culture

Public Corporate Governance Codes | In order to achieve the aims of public corporate governance, the requirements and opportunities of Public Corporate Governance Codes in public authorities are being stressed pertinently. They play a special role in the overall conception of public corporate governance. They are intended to summarise and thus make comprehensible the basic characteristics of the public corporate governance system in a compact form and to specifically address regularly occurring governance questions, ambiguities, or legal gaps and thus provide supporting advice. The following overview illustrates the objectives and potentials a public authority can realize with the respective Public Corporate Governance Code.

  • Contribution to a role-conforming behaviour between shareholders and enterprises in the sense of public task fulfilment with respective degrees of freedom

  • Improvement of the preparation of decisions for the democratically legitimized responsible persons

  • Impulses for possible approaches to numerous technical questions of public corporate governance for all groups of actors involved in this field

  • Public Corporate Governance Code ideal to agree on “rules of the game“ and to address individual instruments and measures

  • Adherence to predefined decision-making processes by the actors involved

  • Requirement-oriented mandate support

  • Clear standards and regulations for the steering of shareholdings and corporate governance/supervision

  • Requirement-oriented exchange of information and requirement-oriented cooperation between SOEs and public administration

  • Good and responsible governance in SOEs

  • Cooperation between the supervisory body and the management body in accordance with requirements

  • Quality, efficiency and professionalism in public shareholdings management

  • Sustainable safeguarding of the public interest and an orientation of SOEs towards the public mandate

  • Achievement of objectives (effectiveness) and economy (efficiency) in the fulfilment of public tasks

  • Help for public authorities and enterprises to present themselves as attractive employers in competition by practising good public corporate governance

  • Overall strengthening of the awareness for responsible public corporate governance and the justified importance of the topic in the socio-political discussion

  • Contribution to the strengthening of the confidence of shareholders and investors as well as of the employees in SOEs in the public sector

  • Contribution to strengthening citizens’ confidence in the public sector and SOEs, of proximity to citizens, and political culture

Source: Expert Commission G-PCGM (2021): German Public Corporate Governance-Modelcode (GPCGM), Eds. Ulf Papenfuß/Klaus-Michael Ahrend/Kristin Wagner-Krechlok, version as of 15 January 2021, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.36256.81924

Expert Commission | A high-profile Expert Commission has developed the G-PCGM in an integrative, participatory and transparent process to support public authorities and individual actors at all federal levels and to further strengthen public corporate governance. The members of the Expert Commission shall as far as possible represent all relevant groups of actors from all federal levels who are concerned with public corporate governance and shareholdings management.

Consultations | The development and evaluation process of the G-PCGM also includes consultations. In the consultations, the Expert Commission invites the interested public to submit written comments on the G-PCGM. The Expert Commission will consider these comments in its discussions and publish them on this website. The Expert Commission sincerely thanks the authors of the comments received during the consultations.