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audit can be restricted to purely checking processes and standards of performance, or it can be refined and developed into a unit which offers advice as to ways and means by which systems can be improved and levels of efficiency raised.
Service-Wide Control
In addition to control by means of the hierarchical structure within a department, which may be reinforced by independent feedback by means of internal audit, there is a need for control measures to be imposed upon the department from outside, as part of a service-wide control mechanism.
3.4 These three schools of thought need not be conflicting; each can be seen as
complementing the other. "Line" control of a department may be complemented by departmental internal audit whilst a form of external review of departmental performance would assist in the overall control of the civil service. These three, mutually complementary, systems of control will be examined in some detail within this Chapter.
3.5 Departmental Line ontrol
The present position, in general terms, is that apart from the exercise of day to day supervision, senior officers in executive departments depend heavily on several forms of line control - regular meetings incorporating regular reviews, a form of "management by exception", and the use of reports and statistical returns as a form of management information.
3.6 Regular meetings are held at, say, district/region/HQ or unit/division/
district/HQ levels in sequence, often on a monthly basis. At the higher level meetings, operational policy and means of implementation are discussed, feedback is normally obtained of general operational problems at the lower levels and a regular review of achievement to that date is undertaken by means of examining reports, often presented in statistical form. The lover level meetings are more concerned with detailed operational problems, problems of supervision, and the use of limited resources to maintain standards or cope with emergency situations. Through this hierarchical chain of meetings, communication is normally achieved by means of officers "overlapping" on meetings and by the distribution of minutes both up and down the line. At the various levels, staff officers or "specialist" officers attend to advise on problems and thus provide horizontal links.
3.7 This structure of meetings represents a form of "management by exception" as problems will only be raised at each successive level according to the degree of importance attached by supervisors/managers at the various levels. In this respect, senior officers become dependent upon the judgement of officers at the middle and lower levels to raise problems. If such judge- ment is faulty, problems at the lower levels may not be brought into the open or they may be glossed over, either knowingly or unwittingly.
3.8 Some senior officers thought it conceivable that they could be misled by
junior officers in terms of diluted, slanted or incorrect information coming up to them through these vertical lines of communication.
In this
way problems could be concealed and distorted pictures could be given, for it may be that the picture given to a senior officer is the picture junior officers consider he wishes to see.
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