RE: Comprehensive Performance Assessments - Expectations of the

[Roger Key <phaedo@ntlworld.com>]

Doug
Thanks for the thoughts.  We may be suffering here from two nations 
separated by a shared language.  In the UK we have the Audit 
Commission who has the job of looking at public services and auditing 
their activities and performance.  Unlike the financial audit of an 
organisation the AC are supposed to look at all the activity of the 
public body they are addressing.  As I said in my reply the reports I 
have read have looked at financial data in the main and then in the 
manner that you report - selecting a series of transactions and 
assessing if these have been handled properly and if not looking 
deeper.  This to me sounds like Dr Deming's description of quality 
control and checking parts.  I am not sure how we would know if the 
treasurer has been correct in their actions etc without looking at 
the systemic nature of their activity.  Similarly in presenting the 
report to the organisation report in the absence of the data from a 
control chart is getting rather close to that from a go-no go test 
gauge.  The organisation may not look at the charts if they do not 
know what they are seeing - but that surly is a task to be addressed 
by the audit team - making sure that their communication is 
understood - rather than throwing out knowledge and understanding in 
the name of simplicity.  Who was it who said something like, 'I would 
not give you tuppence for simplicity this side of complexity, but I 
would pay a kings ransom for simplicity the far side of complexity'. 
To my mind control charts supply simplicity the far side of 
complexity.

AS top the thoughts on social equity and environment in audits.  An 
old world view is that the only thing that an organisation has to do 
is show financial probity within the law.  There are a growing number 
of organisations who realise that this is not enough and is not a 
good audit of a socially mature organisation.  There has been a 
growing trend (small but growing) to produce company reports on 
firstly double bottom lines - financial and environmental, and now 
towards a triple bottom line, financial, environmental and social. 
An organisation that squanders scarce resource, trashes the 
environment  and maximises shareholder value by the exploitation of 
the poor may be a 'good' company in a immature capitalist society but 
I think we should be striving to reach adolescence if not maturity in 
our society and the second and third bottom lines are equally 
auditable as the first.  My interest was whether the Audit Commission 
in the UK - who should be looking at all aspects of the organisation 
- would even be aware of these latter two measures of probity let 
alone be able to utalise them in assessing the organisation in 
question.  And then if the action was sustainable and predictable - 
common cause with low relative variation.

	Roger.

---------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------Roger 
C. Key				 mailto:roger.key@onet.co.uk
Prescient - The Whole as One
(44) 01639 871062