TNAG-0812-FCO40-1017-Allegations-of-bribery-and-corruption-in-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 120

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a system to ensure that practices and procedures within specific

areas of activity are regularly checked to ensure that they remain consistent with the objectives to be achieved;

a system for verifying the accuracy and validity of management information flowing vertically;

a system by which realistic objectives are set and that where these objectives cannot be realistically met, procedures exist for senior management to be informed and the objectives them- selves re-examined.

6.7 Checklist for Supervisors

To assist supervisory officers in determining the extent to which these prerequisites exist within their area of responsibility a Checklist is provided at Appendix II.

6.8 The Exercise of Control

The establishment of a structure, however soundly conceived, will not be sufficient to ensure the practice of supervisory accountability. A belief held by a substantial proportion of the senior officers interviewed in connection with this study is that because Government officers are subjeet to discipline, detailed administrative and operational instructions, regular meetings and routine formal inspections at all levels, then a department must have an efficient system of management control. Discussions with their junior officers, however, illustrated a different conception of order, control and management effectiveness. junior levels there is a resounding plea for an understanding of all the difficulties which exist in the field, and the consequent need to set realistic objectives which can be met with the resources available. otherwise, duties can be perfunctorily performed, and objectives set are seemingly achieved through statistical reporting which is uncriticised or uncritically examined. At a more sinister level, corruption opportunity and the exploitation of such opportunity, may well exist in areas of work where, superficially, practices and procedures are apparently efficient and objectives are apparently being met. Yet all the time, these forms of efficiency may not reflect realities on the ground. One important caveat which came out of discussions was that there could be over insistence on the forms of control or order; specifically, there is a danger of over- definition so that the officer is lost in a sea of instructions and regulations and efforts to exercise control purely in the context of such codification can be counter-productive. Inevitably, sometimes critically, this is at the expense of the substance and effectiveness of such control.

6.9 Given the best will in the world, it must be accepted that in any large

organisation, there is an inevitable process of distortion and dilution of information as it filters through the various strata. It is clearly of paramount importance that supervisors at all levels, in the exercise of control, should be able to assess for themselves the truths, half-truths, or falsehoods (if it should come to that) that are put to them by their junior officers. If supervisory officers are not able to assess the information filtering through from a basis of knowledge of what is actually happening on the ground, there cannot be any effective practice

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