Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

odies have a different direct manager (administrator). Thus, this analysis at the highest level
helps to understand the division of responsibility, subordination and authority in the local
administration, and common pitfalls, which may be caused by the given division.
Form Nr.9 may be used for these interviews. Additional written evidence, which supports the facts
gathered during the interviews, also is worth to be collected (written orders, decisions,
instructions).
Structural subdivisions
For the general information about the organisational structure the audit team should make an
administrative chart 6 . Usually the administrative chart is officially approved, but it normally means
the reporting scheme only. In some cases the officially approved administrative chart might be
absent and the payroll of the staff divided in subdivisions may be used for that purpose. It may
even be a very secret document.
In any case, the administrative chart provided by the local government itself may be not correct in
terms of correspondence with the real structure (and usually this is the case). I.e. there may be
“permanent vacancies”, departments and positions with doubtful subordination, the administrative
chart may be outdated and not reflecting the actual situation. Therefore the audit team must check
if all the positions and subdivision of the administrative chart are actual and in place, and the
relation/ subordination is like the one in the chart.
Information on structural subdivisions may be gathered using:
• Official administrative chart;
• Interviews with highest officials of the municipality (Form Nr.9) and heads of the subdivisions
(Form Nr.8).
One of the most important issues to examine is the principle of subdivision. Is it process based or
function based? To examine these issues direct questions to the highest officials may not be
sufficient. To determine the principle of sub-dividing auditors should use information gathered in all
interviews, finding out how subdivisions are involved in various processes, what services they
provide for internal and external customers, and how they do it.
The example of a function based subdividing system: there is a department, which deals with
citizen complaints and another department responsible for housing and communal property.
Customer complaints related to the housing goes to the department dealing with customer
complaints, registered there, reported to the boss, and are passed to the department of housing
and communal property, although complaints about the housing make 90% from all the complaints
received by the department of customer complaints. The same hosing department may everyday
use the same cars, which, however, belong to another, let's say, the transport department, etc.
The example of a process related system: executive bodies are subdivided into departments
based on services for the population, and every department, which is in charge for a certain
service, also controls all supporting processes and resources, such as purchasing and finance
management.
There might be cases, when several departments have the same area of activities, but deals with
different aspects, i.e. the department of social affairs and the department of family affairs, both
deal with distribution of social support to the same poor families. It is also common to have several
subdivisions dealing with the same economic development. Then nobody is really responsible for
the development.
The auditor should examine why this kind of subdivisions exists:
6 Also called administrational diagram, organisational structure diagram, subordination scheme etc.
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