1.1 Audit findings and opinions

1.1.1 On-site inspection

1.1.1.1 Ranking of institutions and inspection arrangements

This audit found that the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (hereinafter referred to as “DSEJ” according to Portuguese abbreviation) wrongly calculated the ranking results in January 2019 due to staff negligence, causing some institutions to be ranked incorrectly, which affected the number of inspections of the courses that would be held in next quarter. In addition, regarding the inspections of institutions carried out by DSEJ, there were 292 institutions held courses between February and April 2019, but only 49 institutions’ inspections were made according to the guideline, while 196 were not subject to any inspection. Therefore, the execution of these work was obviously unsatisfactory, and there were obvious deficiencies in the supervision of the on-site inspections.

1.1.1.2 Execution of inspection work

Regarding the execution of the inspection work, CA reviewed 379 inspection records, of which six filled information incorrectly, while other aspects did not find any problems. During the on-site inspection, DSEJ carried out the data collection according to the established procedures, showing that the work had been improved.

1.1.1.3 Follow up on the problems detected during inspections

DSEJ did not improve the work of reviewing the inspection records. CA analyzed the samples taken from 379 inspection records and found that 90 had obvious irregularities, which was different from the review result of DSEJ. This reflected that some DSEJ staff did not carry out the review in accordance with the instruction. Besides, owing to the lack of identity information of trainees, it was difficult for DSEJ to verify whether the signatures on attendance form were signed by trainees themselves and consistent with the signatures on identity cards, or were forged by others. Therefore, there is a doubt about the effectiveness of the measure for verifying the signatures. As to the verification of trainer’s identity, the audit found cases in which the trainers did not sign according to the signature on their identity cards, but DSEJ did not discover the fact. Moreover, if someone else signs the name of the trainer declared before on the inspection report and attendance form, according to the current review method, the staff of DSEJ will not suspect the trainer’s signature and verify it. Therefore, the effectiveness of the current verification mechanism is unsatisfactory.

1.1.2 Backup plan for enrolment

DSEJ introduced a way in which applicants enroll courses by inserting their identity cards in order to restrain fraudsters from falsifying the information of applicants and thus defrauding the subsidy of the government. When applicants cannot enroll courses by inserting their identity cards under certain circumstances, the backup plan for enrolment is an alternative solution. However, since DSEJ did not formulate management and monitoring measures on the application of the backup plan, some institutions use the backup plan regularly, but DSEJ was not aware of this situation and did not follow up. For the monitoring of the backup plan, DSEJ has changed the sampling method to be risk-oriented since February 2019; however, the audit found that there was a case in which trainees enrolled in different courses, but when the institution processed the 82 enrollment forms (involving 47 trainees and 43 courses), it used a same phone number for trainees to register in the enrollment system of the Plan. As the monitoring work of telephone interview is based on the phone number entered by the institution that adopts the backup plan to contact trainees, therefore it is doubtful whether the phone number registered by the institution belonged to the trainees or not.

1.1.3 Execution of deposit system

The audit found that the deposits in nearly 30% of registrations were frozen because the institutions did not update the attendance information within 7 days after the completion of the courses. As a result, those deposits could not be used by trainees in a timely manner; besides, the proportion of samples selected by DSEJ to verify the attendance rate of trainees was too low, which caused the inadequate supervision on the truthfulness of the information provided by institutions. This showed that the improvement measures taken by DSEJ were unsatisfactory.

1.1.4 Enrolment of trainers in their own courses

After DSEJ improved its system in January 2013, the system can automatically check whether the trainers enroll in their own courses. Therefore, this audit finding was improved.

1.2 Audit suggestions

DSEJ should:

take advantage of the functions of electronic equipment to resolve the issues relating to the irregularities of the institutions and their grading, in order to avoid the incorrect grading caused by staff negligence; according to the current requirements of supervision, the grading and inspection guidelines can be revised to give supervisors full execution of the inspection work in accordance with the guidelines;

strictly follow the guidelines to carry out inspections in order to ensure that all institutions are properly inspected; besides, DSEJ should perform the work of reviewing the inspection reports rigorously and timely, and follow up on the detected problems;

establish mechanism to analyze and monitor the use of backup plan for enrolment in instructions, with a view to prevent its abuse and review the current monitoring measures to plug the loopholes;

review the current mechanism and define appropriate penalties to ensure that institutions can declare the status of trainees’ completion of courses in a timely and correct manner.