In public organizations, civil service ethics are considered as one of criteria of assessing the quality of civil servants, often clearly defined by laws of each country, because civil servants are determined as executors of state power to serve the people. Therefore, civil service ethics are mentioned with many contents, including ethical issues associated with consciousness, responsibility to serve the state and consciousness and responsibility to serve the people. In this study, the author approaches civil service ethics according to a number of key contents including: Political consciousness; working style; sense of organization and discipline. On the basis of analyzing the theoretical basis, building a scale of civil service ethics of civil servants, the author conducts a practical survey to identify the reality of civil service ethics of local Vietnamese civil servants, specifically: commune-level civil servants - those who directly deal with people's requests. The survey respondents were identified as leaders of commune-level government agencies - the lowest level of government in Vietnam's 3-level local government system (province, district, and commune level). The study was carried out using a qualitative method through the collection of secondary data, combined with a quantitative method through a survey of 400 managers of 250 commune-level government agencies in 10 provinces that represents the three regions of the country. Research results have confirmed: Sense of organizational discipline (SOD) plays the most important role, has the strongest influence on public service ethics of civil servants (PSE); followed by Working Style (WS) and Political Consciousness (PC). From the results of this study, the author suggests to managers a number of contents that need to be researched and adjusted to improve the quality of local civil servants to meet the requirements of serving the people

Public service ethics; Local civil servants; Local government; Vietnam.