methodology for independent audit of citizens' / clients' charters

7/30/2019 Methodology for Independent Audit of Citizens' / Clients' Charters

1/9

2013

Performance Management DivisionC A B I N E T S E C R E T A R I A T Government of India

Methodology for Independent Audit

of Citizens / Clients Charters (CCC)


2/9

Page 2 of 9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Purpose.......... 3

2 Background... 3

3 Audit Methodology and Procedure... 4

3.1 What will be done? ..........

3.2 How it will be done? ........... 4

A. Degree of visibility of CCC in relevant area 4

B. Awareness of departmental officers / staff about CCC 5

C. Degree of accuracy of the numbers and names of the contact person

in CCC .....................

6

D. Response rate for the phone calls made to contact persons ... 7

E. Quality of the self-assessment report 7

F. CCC Score as calculated by the department .. 7

3.3 Who will do the Audit of CCCs? ........ 8

4. Submission Process........ 8


3/9

Page 3 of 9

Methodology for Independent Audit of

C I T I Z E N S / C L I E N T S CH A R T E R S

1.PURPOSE

The Performance Management Division (PMD), Cabinet Secretariat, will be conducting an

independent audit of your departments Citizens / Clients Charters (CCC). This note

outlines the methodology and procedure for conducting this independent audit. It is expected

that a shared understanding of the proposed methodology and the process would ensure

transparency, objectivity and fairness of the proposed independent audit.

2.BACKGROUND

This exercise marks the culmination of a process whose origin can be traced to the

Conference of Chief Ministers of States and Union Territories held on May 24, 1997, in New

Delhi and presided over by the Prime Minister of India. In this Conference, an Action Plan

for Effective and Responsive Government at the Centre and State levels was adopted. One

of the major decisions taken in the Conference was that Departments would formulate

Citizens charters starting with those sectors that have large public interface. Since then

various Government departments/ organisations have made their CCCs.

Given the unsatisfactory track record of implementation of CCC and the uneven quality of

CCCs, which were neither useful for measuring the performance of departments with

respect to this important aspect of departmental performance nor was there any consequence

for ignoring the commitments listed in CCCs, the High Power Committee on Government

Performance, chaired by the then Cabinet Secretary, in its meeting of May 28, 2010 decided

to include Development of Citizens/Clients Charters in Results Framework Documents

(RFDs) as a mandatory indicator for all Departments.

As you are aware, departments have prepared CCCs and all CCCs that were found to be of

acceptable quality have been published as a compendium and sent to all departments. In

addition, all CCCs are also available on the following website:www.performance.gov.in

The RFDs for 2012-13 contain the following mandatory indicator:

ActionsSuccess

IndicatorUnit Weight

Target / Criteria Value

Excellent Very

Good

Good Fair Poor

100% 90% 80% 70% 60%

Independent Audit of

implementation of

Citizens/Clients Charter

(CCC)

% of

implementation% 2 100 95 90 85 80
http://www.performance.gov.in/http://www.performance.gov.in/http://www.performance.gov.in/http://www.performance.gov.in/


4/9

Page 4 of 9

This note describes the proposed methodology and procedure for the independent audit of

CCCs.

3.AUDIT METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE

3.1 What will be done?

The Performance Management Division (PMD), Cabinet Secretariat, will conduct an

independent audit of your departments CCC. This audit will be based on the following

criteria.

Success Indicator Unit Weight

Target / Criteria Value

ExcellentVery

Good

Good Fair Poor

100% 90% 80% 70% 60%

A. Degree of visibility of CCC inrelevant area

% 10 100 85 75 60 50

B. Awareness of departmentalofficers / staff about CCC

% 10 100 85 75 60 50

C. Degree of accuracy of thenumbers and names of the contactperson in CCC

% 10 100 85 75 60 50

D.Response rate for the phone calls

made to contact persons % 10 100 85 75 60 50

E. Quality of the self-assessmentreport

% 10 100 85 75 60 50

F. CCC Score as calculated by thedepartment

% 50 100 85 75 60 50

3.2 How it will be done?

In what follows, we elaborate on the methodology for evaluating each of the six success

indicators mentioned above.

A. Degree of visibility of CCC in relevant area

The degree of visibility of CCC will be verified by the audit team by physically visiting the

respective Ministry/Department, concerned official and their website to check the following

five indicators.


5/9

Page 5 of 9

1 2 3 45=

3 X 4

Success Indicator Unit WeightYes NO

Weighted

Score

1 0

i. Is the CCC of the Departmentdisplayed in the Reception orFacilitation Centre?

% 20

ii. Is the CCC displayed on the HomePage (Main Menu) of theDepartments webpage?

% 20

iii. Is the CCC displayed at GrievanceRedress Office?

% 20

iv. Is the CCC displayed in the officeof the CCC Nodal Officers?

% 10

v. Audit team was able to get a hardcopy of CCC at the Reception Deskor help desk

% 30

Total Weighted Score =

The score awarded for this indicator will be determined as follows

Total Weighted Score

(from above)5 4 3 2 1

Score Awarded for this criterion 100 90 80 70 60

B. Awareness of departmental officers / staff about CCC

Based on Interviews with nodal officer and two officers-in charge of any service /

transaction, the information will be gathered for each of the following five questions relating

to the purpose of the CCCs.

i.

Goal of CCC is to ensure timely delivery of service or transaction within aprescribed time

ii. Goal of CCC is to increase accountability of service provideriii. Service Recipient can avail remedies in case of non-compliance by service

provider

iv. CCC should be displayed at prominent places such as the facilitation centre /reception desk / website

v. Orientation / training of concerned officials / staff of the Department isessential to improve the effectiveness of CCCs.


6/9

Page 6 of 9

Each concerned officer will be asked by the audit team whether he / she believes the above

are TRUE or FALSE

The rating scale for this criterion will be as follows:

Number of TRUE answers 5 4 3 2 1


C.Degree of accuracy of the numbers and names of the contact person in CCC

This will be checked by randomly calling on the contact number listed in CCC for the person

responsible for a given service/transaction in CCC. This will be done for 2 such officials andone grievance redress officer. The scoring will be based on following metrics:

1 2 3 45=

3 X 4

Success Indicator Unit WeightYes NO

Weighted

Score

1 0

i. Is the contact number of the personresponsible for service / transaction # 1accurate?

% 20

ii. Is the name of the person responsible forservice / transaction # 1 accurate?

% 20

iii. Is the contact number of the personresponsible for service / transaction # 2accurate?

% 20

iv. Is the name of the person responsible forservice / transaction # 2 accurate?

% 20

v. Is the contact number as well as name ofperson responsible for grievance redressaccurate?

% 20

Total Weighted Score =

The score awarded for this indicator will be determined as follows

Total Weighted Score

(from above)5 4 3 2 1



7/9

Page 7 of 9

D. Response rate for the phone calls made to contact persons

During the audit period, five calls will be made to officers providing services and grievance

redress officers on different working days and at different points of time within the workinghours to see if the call is picked and the concerned person is available to speak. During each

attempt, if successful in contacting the concerned person, a score of 1 will be given or else

0 will be assigned. The rating scale for this criterion will be as follows:

Number of CALLS answered 5 4 3 2 1


E. Quality of the self-assessment report

At the end of the year, each department is expected to present to the PMD, Cabinet

Secretariat, a report containing self-assessment of departmental performance vis--vis targets

in their CCC. This report should have two parts:

i. PART A: This part of the self-assessment report is to be generated using theEvaluation Module for CCC in the RFMS. Figure 1 below shows the relevant screen

print.

Figure 1: Screen Print of CCC Evaluation Module from RFMS


8/9

Page 8 of 9

ii. PART B: The second part of the report should contain more detailed explanation ofthe self-assessment of CCC performance. It should contain, at the minimum, as

many sections as the number of services. For each service, it must provide following

information.

1. What service/transaction is rendered by the department? A short descriptionif it is not self-evident.

2. Who provides it?3. How is it measured?4. Where does the data come from? What mitigating strategies have been

undertaken to prevent data manipulation? That is, what is the quality

assurance procedure with respect to data?

5. Who measures it?6. When is it measured? That is, how frequently it is measured?

Thus, if a department has listed 10 services / transactions in its CCC, it will be expected to

provide 60 (= 6 X 10) data points. The auditors will select 5 such points randomly for

detailed examination of the robustness of responses and the score will depend on how many

of the 5 points are considered robust:

Number of ROBUST data points

from the Self Assessment report5 4 3 2 1

Score Awarded for this criterion100 90 80 70 60

F. CCC Score as calculated by the department

Final element in the evaluation matrix includes the actual composite score, as calculated by

the department, for the performance against the targets in their CCC. This has a weight of 50

%. This implies that all other 5 elements are there to ensure that this Composite Score for

CCC performance is robust. As mentioned earlier, this has to be calculated using RFMS to

ensure the integrity of the calculations.

3.3. Who will do the Audit of CCCs?

The Audit will be done by a reputable Third-Party. Once finalized, PMD will convey to the

departments the name of the party and their contact points. If designated independent auditors

are not allowed access for doing the audit, then the score will be nil against CCC. In other

words, only if your departmental score for CCC achievements can be verified by an

independent group, your department will be awarded the score.


9/9

Page 9 of 9

4.SUBMISSION PROCESS

The CCC Self-Assessment Report should be submitted on or before May 25, 2013 to score

full points in this regard. In addition, please send us your achievement report as follows:

a. Electronic copy of the Self-Assessment Report including CCC Achievements in PDFformat (printed from RFMS) should be sent to the following emails:

[email protected], [email protected]; and [email protected]

b. Printed version (15 copies) of the CCC Self-Assessment Report should be handdelivered to Performance Management Division, Cabinet Secretariat, at the following

address:

Mr. R. L. RaichandaniDeputy Secretary (Cabinet Secretariat)

Performance Management Division (PMD)

Cabinet Secretariat

Room 208 (5th Wing)

The Hotel Janpath, Janpath

New Delhi-110001

If we do not receive yourdepartments achievement data by May 25, 2013, we will presume

that those targets were not achieved. Please submit calculation based on only verifiable and

confirmed data.

If our independent auditors are not allowed access for doing the audit, then again the score

will be nil against this.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]