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

First of all, during the interviews with the highest officials of the municipality the auditor should
check if any objective setting system exists. Even where the auditor can find a strategic plan of the
municipality, objectives and targets set at the municipal and departmental level, it does not
necessary mean that systematic approach is employed. There may be only an accidental set of
separated activities, for which different departments or officials are responsible. The auditor should
examine the principles of objective setting: if we have here a top-down approach, when objectives
of the separate units are set according to the municipality level objectives or bottom-up approach
when municipality level objectives are set by collecting suggestions of separate units. If the auditor
finds that there is no general objective setting system, he should examine how it is assured that
objectives of separate subdivisions are interrelated; correspond to common objectives and strategy
of municipality. During interviews with the heads of departments and employees the auditor verifies
this information on the level of subdivisions.
The auditor should not be tricked by the existence of formal planning procedures and written plans
of activities. If these are in place, the auditor should carefully examine for what purposes these
plans were created. Plans may be created for daily or weekly control of routine activities of the
department or single officer, but they may have nothing to do with implementation of specific
objectives. Thus existence of some plans does not necessarily mean that it helps to achieve the
goals of the organisation.
Planning of daily activities by the employees is also interesting, but only as much as it is needed to
examine if the work processes are carried out under controlled conditions.
Responsibility and authority
Information from
questionnaires
Examination of
internal documents,
which define
responsibility,
authority and duties
OVERVIEW
STAGE
Examination, specification
SURVEY
STAGE
Examination of the
actual responsibility
and subordination
Diagram 4 Auditing procedure
Information on responsibility and authority of the employees may be obtained by using:
• Questionnaires;
• Internal normative documents;
• Interviews with the employees (see diagram 3).
Questionnaires are distributed and interviews are planned with every employee or employees of
certain departments (depending on the audit objectives).
Questionnaires provide us with information related to the duties of every employee and services
provided by each department. However, the use of questionnaires might not be successful in every
case. I.e. most of the employees of one state owned enterprise have rewritten their descriptions of
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