5
Goal 3: Improving communication with stakeholders and ensuring higher
visibility
This
strategy is about:
3A. Need
for theCAG to be more proactive in his interactions with the media
3B. Setting up a separate
Parliamentary/Legislative Relations Unitto extend proactive support
3C. Building
a brand for the organisation
3D. Treating
Inspection Reports as products of the CAG for consumption by the public and
other 
stakeholders3E. Introducing
more value added products like study reports, compendiums etc., so that they act as ‘Aids to
Management’3F. Setting up countersin each city for
distributing audit reports to common citizens
3G. Giving
more focused dissemination and communication through vernacular languages
3H. Revamp the CAG website
5.1 Need for the
CAG to be more proactive in his interactions with the media
Current position
· The current practice being followed for
interactions with the media in the CAG organisation only entails holding a
press conference with the media after presentation of audit reports to the
parliament/legislature. Thereafter, interactions on these audit findings are
not structured, and only happen in rare cases in a reactive, ad hoc manner.
· Sometimes (especially on the Central side),
multiple Audit Reports are bunched together for tabling, and a single Press
Conference is held covering a variety of disparate topics. Often, adequate
attempts are not made to target media correspondents from specific beats
(health and education, water and irrigation etc.) due to lack of adequate
internal communication between different wings.
· Even in the press conference, the presentation
and the press brief which are presented to the media are based largely on the
highlights/executive summary forming part of the approved Audit Report. Hence,
no additional information of a clarificatory/ supplementary nature is shared in
the press conference. Thus, an opportunity for invoking the kind of
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page24
response which is commensurate with the strong
information and findings contained in the reports is not fully exploited.
·
Accordingly,
only those issues that qualify as ‘sensational news’ according to the press,
are picked up. All this leads to a skewed reporting of the Reports and very
often small issues get highlighted unduly, at the cost of leaving out big
ticket issues. This situation is further handicapped by the fact that there is
no strategy in place to counteract and rectify such skewed reporting.
Need to frame a more realistic media policy
There is a need to frame a suitable policy
that allows press briefings to extend beyond the approved highlights/executive
summary that already features in the audit reports. Field offices needs to be
empowered (and trained) to suitably brief and handle controversial
questionsfrom the media without putting theCAG in a difficult position.
Whenever a media interaction is planned by any field office, there is a need to
ensure the presence of representatives from the media wing oftheCAG. This will
ensure a certain degree of consistency in the approach of different field
formations to the media. Thus, there is a need to spell out a clear media
policy to ensure that the vast reach and sphere of influence of the media is
taken advantage by us for disseminating theCAGaudit findings.
Need for structured dissemination of
audit findings through media
For wide dissemination ofauditreports, we are largely dependent on the
print/TV media. However, we find that media often picks up only thoseaudit
reportsor issues within an audit report,which in their view make
good/sensational news. This very often leads to skewed focus on certain issues
in our audit reports. To address this issue and to increase the impact of the
audit reports, the IAAD could consider regularly buying space in print/TV media
so that these reports are disseminated in a structured, focused and sustained
fashion throughout the year. The IAAD could alsoconsiderdisseminatingtheaudit
reports and its findingsthrough organisationallysponsored (by the CAG)columns
in newspapers/magazines, programmes on TV etc.
In order to manage these processes more
effectively,the IAAD mayalsoconsider empanelling full time Public Relations/Media
Managementagencies7 for this purpose.
Need to more proactively aid the media
7
An exercise for
appointing a PR agency for the celebrations of the 150 years of the institution
of the CAG is currently underway. In our view, this should be extended to a
longer term engagement, with clearly defined scope, objectives, and
deliverables. Building the “IAAD” or “CAG” brand as a long term exercise should
also be part of this assignment.
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page25
Very often issues get flagged by the media which stir up a debate in
the country. At this juncture, the media looks for audit reports of the CAG as
a credible and independent source of information to supplement the debate. This
poses a great opportunity for the CAG to showcase its reports which could add
value to theissues being debated earlier also. However, currently we do not
have any mechanism to aid the media with such inputs. It is, therefore,
proposed that as and when topical issues arise, there must be amechanismof
collating and presenting (on thewebsite, through the media wing) past audit
findings or other related issues (covering findings across Centre/ State/
different functional wings) so that the media gets an appropriate perspective.
This will go a long way in improving the image of the organisation.
For example, whenever any railwayaccident occurs, the media starts
hunting for reports of the CAG that had flagged such safety issues in the past.
However, if the CAG quickly puts together all reports in the last few years
issued relating to safety and highlights the response by the railways8, it will go a long way in enhancing the presence and image of the
organisation.
5.2 Setting up a
separate Parliamentary/Legislative Relations Unit
Parliament (and the State Legislatures) are the primary stakeholders
for the CAG. All major SAIs have separate Parliamentary Relations Unitsor such
equivalent arrangements, which provide information and feedback to PAC members/
other MPs/ Congressional staff on request. TheCAGmust position itself to the
first point of contact and support on accountability and assurance issues to
the Parliament/ Legislaturesin a more proactive way. Currently,such supportis being
handled by individual report wings, who have to process these cases in addition
to their ongoing and continuous work. We need to have an adequately staffed
Parliamentary Relations/ Liaison Unit, which needs to respond to Parliamentary
requests. In due course of time, such a Unit should also envisage a pro‐active
role in providing briefings/ documents to Parliamentarians. Such a structure
should be appropriately replicated at the State Level.
Further, in addition to supporting the PAC/
COPU, we could also consider offering appropriating support (through this unit)
to a few selected Departmental Standing Committees of Parliament.
5.3 Building a
brand for the organisation
To ensure recall in the minds ofcitizens
regarding any institution, it is necessaryto distinctively brand the products
of the institution. For this, there is a need to ensure that the products of
the institution like audit reports, presentations, references etc., have some
distinguishing and standardized features such as a particular colour scheme,
logo, header, footer, font etc, so that they can be recognised easily as a
branded product of that institution. In this context there is a need to
standardise the letterheads, visiting cards, presentation templatesetc., for
the CAG organisation. Introducing a clip‐on badge/brouche for all field audit
staffwith the insignia of the organisation would also go a long way in building
a brand for the organisation.
8 As was done recently. However, instead of being a one‐off exercise,
this should be institutionalized.
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page26
The services of PR agencies, who specialize in
such brand building exercises, should be utilized to the extent possible.
5.4 Treat
Inspection Reports as products of the CAG for consumption by the publicand
other stakeholders
Inspection Reportsissued by the CAG to audited
entities are a storehouse of information regarding the entities9. It is important that such information is available for the scrutiny
of all stakeholders who would like to get educated on all such issues. Such
education could also lead to other stakeholders acting as pressure groups in
ensuring corrective action by the executive. However as per the current system,
this information is not available in the public domain and is left to either
the auditors and the audited entities to follow up on the issues reflected in
these inspection reports. Disclosure to other parties (including the public) is
made only in a reactive fashion in response to requests under the RTI Act.
In order to improve the overall governance in
the country, it becomes necessary to ensure that other stakeholders like the
general public are educated on such issues. It is thus proposed that we should
take proactive measures to ensure that allInspection Reports which are already
accessible to the public through the RTI Act be made publicly accessible
through thevariouswebsites of the CAG.
We have drawn attention to the indifferent
quality of IRs and the isolated nature of findings reported through these IRs
(rather than an overall perspective). However, despite these obvious
deficiencies, the IRs still remain a valuable source of information for
interested stakeholders. In addition to making these IRs publicly available, parallel
action should be taken to improve the quality of IRs through measures suggested
elsewhere in this document.
A phased approach could be adopted to public
disclosure of IRs through uploading on the Internet. Initially, IRs arising out
of thematic audits could be disclosed, followed up a selection of high quality
IRs after careful scrutiny. In the third phase, all IRs could be placed in the
public domain; hopefully by that time, measures to strengthen and reorient
compliance audit would be fully implemented.
5.5 Introduce
more Value added products other than audit reports like ‘Aid to Management
Series’
Currently the CAG audit reports are the only
public products being put out in the public domain. With just about 150 audit
reports being presented to Parliament/legislature every year, the voice of the
CAG as an aid to management in improving governance gets restricted. Recently,
the CAG has been experimenting with some other value added products which are
targeted to act as an ‘aid to management’and not for presentation to the
Parliament. A few such products already brought out by the CAG like study
reports and compendiums have met with great success. There is a need to
consolidate and popularise these products and also look at a few more such
products in the near future.
9 An introduction about the entity {Part I(a)},
outstanding objections in brief from previous reports {Part I(b)},
majorcompliance irregularities whichpoint to system failure {Part
IIA},irregularities or recoveries to be effected or regularised, which though
not major are to be brought to the notice of higher authorities {Part IIB} and
Test Audit Note containing minor irregularities, to which a schedule of items
settled on the spot shouldbe attached {Part III}.
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page27
We should roughly be able to target at least
75 such alternate products that could be presented to the Executive as an ‘Aid to
Management Series’.
Study Reports
Study Reports like the one on the“Preparedness
for the XIX Commonwealth Games” have been very positively received by the
Executive; these were followed by Study Reports on preparedness for the SAF
Games in Uttarakhand as well as CWG‐related Railway Projects. Such Study
Reports help usto position ourselves in a more pro‐active participatory role
towards the common objective of both the auditee and the auditor of improving
governance, i.e. as part of the solution, rather than merely highlighting
deficiencies.
Compendiums
The recent compendium on “Police
Modernisation” was another product which was very well received by the
Executive to plan their future strategies across states in the country. This
product was timely in highlighting the critical issues that the executive need
to address while tackling important law and order issues in the country.
Transitioning products for new governments/legislature
Whenever there is transition between
governments, the CAG could evaluate and bring out a report that highlights
critical issues to be addressed by the new government. However, this has to be
done in a very sensitive and professional way so that it is ensured that the
critical issues identified by the CAG do not get construed as a report
highlighting the weak areas of the previous government and do not take on
political overtones. The idea of this transitioning product is more to flag all
the critical issues that require new or continued focus by the new government.
Preparing a high risk list for Government
In addition to examination of risk management
processes in the Government,the CAG could consider attempting a list of high
risk areas for the Union Government, based on past audit experience. Such audit
experience would essentially be based on past Audit Reports
(Performance,Complianceand Financial Audits) and action taken thereon (or lack
of such action). Such a document would be worthwhile producing, as it would, in
a single document, highlight the CAG’s key concerns (top 10‐20) on the
government’s accountability. However, such an audit assessment of high risk
areas would have to be a macro, high‐level assessment, and cannot afford to
focus on less important/ routine issues. Further, it would have to be based
primarily on audit report material (which is what our institution’s credibility
comes from). Theoretical analysis of issues – without audit effort – could, at
best, be used only to supplement findings based on audit, since such analysis
could be produced by several other institutions and not just the CAG.
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page28
Good Practice Seminar Series
Over
the years, the role of the C&AG has been recognized as an institution that
has aided in improving governance, but only indirectly. This is largely because
most of the wisdom which has been imparted by the C&AG has been through the
vehicle of audit reports, which are more in the natureof post mortems. The
general perception has been that auditors always come in after the event is
over and this has very often impacted on the overall image of the C&AG in
the eyes of itsnumerous stakeholders. In order to enhance the image of the
C&AG, we need to consider the concept of ‘Preventive audit’ on the lines of
‘Preventive vigilance’. In this context, we could consider holding a series of
‘Good Practice Seminars’ all over India. These seminars would help in:
· Increasing awareness amongst stakeholders on important governance
issues
· Sensitizing executive departments to the
prevalent rules and regulations and discussing its complexities
· Reviewing new trends, techniques and best practices both national and
international.
· Suggesting improvements to the existing frameworks
Some topics for these ‘Good Practice’ seminar
series could be procurement, public private partnerships, research &
innovation, consultancy, performance measurement, project management,
regulation, public service delivery etc. The modalities of conducting the
seminar could be
· Select a topic and after due internal
research, finalize the sub themes for deliberation in the seminar and prepare a
status paper for deliberation.
·
Run these
‘Good Practice Seminars’, across the country in around 4 to 6 cities for a
period of 6 months. The duration of the seminar could either for a day or two
depending on the subject.
·
Invite
panelists from a mix of stakeholders (e.g. implementing departments, NGOs/
Civil Society Organisations and auditors) to share their thoughts .The number
of panelists could vary between to 5 to 10 depending on the subject. Some
panelists could be common across cities
·
Invite
participants from mix from implementing departments and auditors. The number of
participants could vary between 50 to 60 participants in each city. The local
Accountant General could identify the participants.
· Circulate seminar deliberations immediately
after 6 months and bring out a good practice paper as part of CAGs ‘Good
Practice Series’.
· Targettwo such ‘Good Practice Series every year.
Conducting a series of ‘Good Practice Seminars
and bringing out a ‘Good Practice Series’ will go a long way forward in
enhancing the image of the institution of the CAG as being involved in
improving
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page29
governance in the country, and also provide
additional avenues for media coverage and communication with the larger
stakeholder community, which would be separatefrom the Audit Reports.
5.6 Setting up
counters in each city for distributing audit reports to common citizens
Our Audit Reports (as well as pictorial CD
booklets, which provide a summary of the main audit findings along with an
electronic copy of the full Audit Report) represent the easiest way to
communicate “what we do” to our target audience. Currently, printed
copies of the CAG’s Audit reports are available only with the offices
producing these reports. However, our mechanisms for distribution are very
weak, and accessibility of stakeholders and the general public to these reports
remains limited. There is no easy way by which anybody can ask (whom?) for a
copy of an Audit Report, and get it immediately or quickly.
While electronic versions of the report (in
English) are available on our Internet website, these represent only a
supplementary method of distribution (targeted primarily at a younger IT savvy
audience). Consequent, there is a need to broaden the channels for distribution
of audit reports:
·
Setting up
counters in each city (the location of which is in a high visibility area and
is easily accessible by common citizens), where common citizens can collect
copies of our Audit Reports (Central as well as State Audit Reports) and CD
booklets. The Audit Reports for the last few years should be arranged
theme‐wise. Further, electronic version of all Audit Reports (Centre and
States) for the last 12‐15 years should be available, so that through
appropriate searches based on the topic, reports/chapters of relevance could be
located and either made available on CD or printed out and distributed at
nominal cost.
·
Displaying
selected Audit Reports in other Government Buildings (appropriately tailored
e.g. Social Sector Audit Reports in the reception area of Ministries of GoI
dealing with the social sector);
·
Making
reports available through the field offices of the Directorate of Publications
Division (DPD), Ministry of I&B; leading libraries in academic and research
institutions, as well as through the National Book Trust offices as well as
leading bookstore chains – with the clear understanding that the objective is
not to recover costs or generate revenues, but to generate awareness.
5.7 Giving more
focus on dissemination and communication through Hindi/ Vernacular languages
All CAG Reports are published in English as
well as a vernacular language/Hindi depending on the state in which the report
is being presented. While over the years, the quality of language used in the
English reports has by and large been standardised, thequality of the
translated reports in Hindi/Vernacular languages needs some enhancement in
quality, primarily on account of the use of highly stilted phrases
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page30
and usages10 which are
used only in bureaucratic parlance and are not easily understandable by the
common man. In order to improve the quality of these translated reports, there
is a need to usequality professionals to enhance quality. This is particularly
important as most of our stakeholders prefer to read the reports in
Hindi/Vernacular languages over the English language. This is an area where
renewed focus is required.
Further, the CAG website does not update and
uploadHindi/Vernacularreportsas currently as the English ones. There is,
therefore, a need to uploadall CAG reports(in English/Hindi/Vernacular
Language) in the website on the day of presentation along with tickers to
attract attention. Further, all other products of the CAG should also be
translated into some key local languages wherever required so that readability
and our reach could improved.
5.8 Revamping the
CAG Website
In the
new IT age, Internet websites have become themost common sources of information
and knowledge sharing by any entity. The more informative and interactive the
website, the more the chances of increased hits on the website.
The CAG’s Internet website should position
itself as a one‐stop portal for independent, credible and validated information
on governance. For example if any visitor to our website wants information
about health related issues featuring in audit reports across the country, then
the search engine should be able to list out all such issues reported on the
CAG, suitably categorized and classified (e.g. compliance/financial/performance
audits, year‐wise, state‐wise, department‐wise etc).
The search facilities currently available on
our website are rudimentary. Thus there is, therefore, a need to revamp our
website to ensure that:
· All audit products (Audit Reports, Management
Studies, IRs etc.) are available on the website.
· Any member of the general public can easily
navigate through the website to elicit subject‐ wise and sector‐wise
information.
· It is possible to easily query the system and extract the required
information
· The website is visually more appealing, yet simple.
10 This generally arises because of frequent,
over‐use of English‐Hindi dictionaries by our staff for translation of the
English Report
9th September,2010 Strategic Plan‐2020 prepared by Group of Officers Page31
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