Readers of this column may already know that I am not a big fan of our Audit Commission, and this is not because I am blind to its stated purpose: to ensure public funds are used appropriately and to their best effect. But there is something intrinsically wrong about the 'hit and run' mode of its operation: it sends its people to an organisation, opens the books, draws its conclusions, publishes damning reports, and then it is off to the next target.
Last year, I raised the question of how the commission could justify its praise for the Equal Opportunities Commission for using a free but 'marginally acceptable' wheelchair access ramp for a disability discrimination seminar, instead of using a better ramp it would have to pay for. Clearly, it did not take into account the work and role of the organisation it audited.
Measuring with the wrong yardstick not only makes its reports unfair, it causes more problems. In the case of the access ramp, the message it sent seems to be that universal and optimal accessibility for people with disabilities is wrong, only the 'free' and the 'minimal' is right. Unfortunately, if you have disabilities, the commission has labelled you 'not worth the dough'.
The commission did not see fit to respond to my question.
Audits are supposed to identify areas for improvement. While the commission has done some good in pointing out blind spots in others, it has failed to address its own blind spots by ignoring the public's criticism of itself.
This year, the auditors stormed the gates of direct subsidy schools. They appear to have assessed these schools by the standards of aided schools, which is outrageous, because their operations and sources of income are different.
It seems now that the accounting malpractices uncovered in our direct subsidy schools stemmed from unclear Education Bureau guidelines. Shouldn't this be clear to the auditors? Instead, this was made known - by the schools themselves - after the report was published.