Oversight Role Research Articles

Enforcement of logging regulations in Ghana: Perspectives of frontline regulatory officers

This study examines how the state regulator enforces logging regulations with the view to understand how that influences compliance-violation behaviour of loggers in Ghana. It does so by drawing on the perspectives and experiences of fifty (50) frontline officials directly engaged in forest law enforcement in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The study finds that the deterrent effect of the state regulator is weak for two main reasons. First, the frontline officials have poor proactive detection capacity due to resource constraints. Second, they lack sufficient legal authority to issue strong sanctions and, even within their authority, issues sanctions far below the prescribed maximum because of interferences from the political through socio-cultural to administrative settings, and corrupt practices. To improve enforcement effectiveness, the study recommends the following. First, detection should be enhanced through aerial patrols and reconnaissance surveys using drones and other modern technologies. Second, there should be a real risk of sanction certainty and severity for loggers who violate the logging regulations and officials caught in corrupt practices and third, a strong network of local and international actors including the media and civil society groups playing an oversight role.

Barriers and facilitators to implementing priority inpatient initiatives in the safety net setting

BackgroundSafety net hospitals, which serve vulnerable and underserved populations and often operate on smaller budgets than non-safety net hospitals, may experience unique implementation challenges. We sought to describe common barriers and facilitators that affect the implementation of improvement initiatives in a safety net hospital, and identify potentially transferable lessons to enhance implementation efforts in similar settings.MethodsWe interviewed leaders within five inpatient departments and asked them to identify the priority inpatient improvement initiative from the last year. We then conducted individual, semi-structured interviews with 25 stakeholders across the five settings. Interviewees included individuals serving in implementation oversight, champion, and frontline implementer roles. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research informed the discussion guide and a priori codes for directed content analysis.ResultsDespite pursuing diverse initiatives in different clinical departments, safety net hospital improvement stakeholders described common barriers and facilitators related to inner and outer setting dynamics, characteristics of individuals involved, and implementation processes. Implementation barriers included (1) limited staffing resources, (2) organizational recognition without financial investment, and (3) the use of implementation strategies that did not adequately address patients’ biopsychosocial complexities. Facilitators included (1) implementation approaches that combined passive and active communication styles, (2) knowledge of patient needs and competitive pressure to perform well against non-SNHs, (3) stakeholders’ personal commitment to reduce health inequities, and (4) the use of multidisciplinary task forces to drive implementation activities.ConclusionInner and outer setting dynamics, individual’s characteristics, and process factors served as implementation barriers and facilitators within the safety net. Future work should seek to leverage findings from this study toward efforts to enact positive change within safety net hospitals.

The evaluative role of legislatures in creating a responsive executive

The ability of legislatures to play a more effective oversight role is intricately linked to its ability to properly conceptualise and institutionalise its monitoring and evaluation (ME) function. This article discusses the three main ways in which legislatures contribute to strengthening their oversight role over the executive, with a focus on the South African Parliament. The three ways in which Parliament creates a more responsive executive include: (1) utilising the results of evaluations conducted by departments, stimulating demand; (2) initiating Parliament-led evaluations, especially on transversal issues; and (3) the phenomena of legislature-focussed evaluations (self-assessments). The extent and nature of Parliament’s interaction will be explored including the internal arrangements for ME. The unique positioning of legislatures lends itself to exploring the use of tried and tested methodologies in a new environment, while the oversight mandate provides a key opportunity to explore evaluative methodologies and tools, especially in assessing the link between executive action and citizen outcomes.Conclusions include recommendations for collaboration between components within Parliament, internal systems and processes, including the interplay between the institution’s knowledge management system and strategic management processes, as well as the active building of an evaluative culture. It is only when evaluation becomes an integral part of how Parliament conceptualises its work that the legislature will begin to play an essential role in creating a responsive executive, thereby strengthening the national evaluation eco-system.

Protecting information rights in South Africa: the strategic oversight roles of the South African Human Rights Commission and the Information Regulator

Protecting information rights in South Africa: the strategic oversight roles of the South African Human Rights Commission and the Information Regulator

Oversight Role of the WHO Independent Monitoring of the 2018-19 LLINs Replacement Campaign in Nigeria

The World Health Organisation (WHO) independent monitoring report (IMR) for the Long-lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) replacement campaign in Nigeria aims to ensure the campaigns met the minimum WHO standard through monitoring and guiding of the processs ...

The Influence of Auditor Narcissism and Moral Disengagement on Risk Assessments of a Narcissistic Client CFO

Global capital markets rely heavily on independent and skeptical auditors as gatekeepers to provide assurance that corporate financial reports are free of material fraud. The rise of narcissism among the ranks of both client and audit professionals challenge this gatekeeper function. In addition, auditor moral disengagement may undermine auditor skepticism, further eroding public confidence in the integrity of financial reporting and the audit process. We conduct a quasi-experiment with 118 auditors from three international audit firms. In a simulated interview with a client CFO, we examine whether auditors underestimate risks of fraudulent financial statements due to the interactive effects of (1) client narcissism (manipulated verbally and nonverbally) and (2) auditor narcissism. We also examine the influence of auditor moral disengagement on client risk assessments. Results indicate that CFO verbal and nonverbal narcissism significantly influenced auditors’ assessment of management-related client risk. Moreover, auditor narcissism was found to interactively influence client risk inferences such that auditors higher in narcissism exhibited narcissistic tolerance (lower risk assessments) when the hypothetical CFO displayed high verbal narcissism. Auditor moral disengagement was negatively associated with client risk assessments. We discuss the implication of these findings on future audit judgment research, audit firm policy and training on maintaining auditor skepticism, and the audit oversight role of standard-setters.

Reforms and budgetary oversight roles in Tanzania

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the new Budget Act (2015) and the new budget cycle influence and were influenced by the contextual environment of the Tanzanian parliament and how this changed parliamentarians’ (MPs) budgetary oversight roles. Design/methodology/approach The paper employed analytical concepts explained in the contextual framework proposed by Alsharari et al. (2015) to explore changes in budgetary oversight roles after the implementation of the reforms. Interviews, video clips and document review were employed in the data collection. Data were analyzed using the thematic approach. Findings The values of the new Budget Act and the new budget cycle were in conflict with the prevailing institutions, political and power aspects. The MPs modified a few provisions in the new Budget Act and in the new budget cycle. Legitimating budgetary oversight roles as a result of institutional pressure emerged but stopped. Although there was a change in MPs formal powers and MPs involvement in budgetary oversight, there was stability as the change was ineffective. Research limitations/implications The paper only extracted relevant aspects of the contextual framework, which were sufficient to achieve the objective of the paper. Moreover, the study was conducted only a few years after the implementation of the reforms. Therefore, it might be too early to reach conclusions. Yet, the paper serves as the basis for further studies investigating changes in budgetary oversight roles after the implementation of the reforms. Practical implications In order for the parliament to hold the government accountable to the electorate, there is a need for reforming the nature of the government system, improving MPs capacity, harmonizing Budget Act with prevailing constitution and demonstrating the political will to use MPs’ formal powers. The findings suggest that effective change in budgetary oversight by focusing on formal institutions only is unlikely. Originality/value This paper provides a more robust explanation on how the integration of institutional, political and power aspects shape budgetary oversight roles in parliaments. It is the first paper to explore accounting change using the contextual theoretical framework in an organization of a parliamentary nature. The paper responds to Kim’s (2018) call for conducting case studies to explore changes in budgetary oversight roles by investigating potential attributes of institutions when operating in practice.

Audit Committee Attributes and Internal Audit Function Effectiveness. Evidence from Zimbabwe Local Authorities

The study aimed at establishing the impact of audit committee characteristics on internal audit function effectiveness in Zimbabwe local authorities. The study used audit committee characteristics as represented by its dimensions of competence, conduct of meetings and independence as the independent variable and internal audit function effectiveness, represented by its dimensions of independence, competence and objectivity as the dependent variable. The association between the independent and dependent variables was assessed considering the effects of the regulatory environment as the mediating variable there to. Survey data was obtained from audit committee chairpersons and chief audit executives in Zimbabwean local authorities using semi-structured questionnaires. Correlation and regression analysis were used to test whether there is a relationship between audit committee characteristics and internal audit function effectiveness. The study established that audit committee membership in Zimbabwe local authorities is not subject to qualifications, experience or expertise, as such, majority of audit committees in Zimbabwe local authorities lack the required competencies to effectively execute their mandates. Correlation and regression analysis results further established that the characteristics of independence and conduct of meetings are capable of predicting the effectiveness of internal audit functions within Zimbabwe local authorities. The study recommends the inclusion of “resource persons”, in form of independent professionals with financial expertise and experience within audit committees of local authorities, most preferably from the civil service, so as to fill the competency gap. The study also recommends the establishment of clearer guidelines on the operation of audit committees within Zimbabwe local authorities to help in ensuring the committees’ independence and objectiveness is guaranteed thereby strengthening their oversight role. Keywords: Audit committee, Attributes, Internal audit function, Effectiveness DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-24-07 Publication date: December 31 st 2019

Delivering water services during protracted armed conflicts: How development agencies can overcome barriers to collaboration with humanitarian actors

AbstractThis note discusses the challenges of water service delivery before, during and after protracted armed conflict, focusing on barriers that may impede successful transition from emergency to development interventions. The barriers are grouped according to three major contributing factors (three “C”s): culture (organizational goals and procedures), cash (financing practices) and capacity (know-how). By way of examples, the note explores ways in which development agencies can overcome these barriers during the three phases of a protracted armed conflict, using examples of World Bank projects and experiences in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before the crisis, development agencies need to work to prevent armed conflict. In a situation of active armed conflict or when conflict escalates, development agencies need to remain engaged as much as possible, as this will speed up post-conflict recovery. When conflict subsides, development agencies need to balance the relative effort placed on providing urgently needed emergency relief and water supply and sanitation services with the effort placed on re-establishing sector oversight roles and capacity of local institutions to oversee and manage service delivery in the long term.

Understanding early childhood education and care utilization in Canada: implications for demand and oversight

This study examined early childhood education and care (ECEC) utilization in Canada, focusing on use of unlicensed home child care (HCC) from an equity perspective. Data from the 2011 cycle of the General Social Survey (GSS) were used. Across Canada, parent responses reveal that 16.6% of children between the age of 12 months and entry to school were in unlicensed HCC. Another 24% of working parents reported having no regular form of non-parental childcare. Families with higher incomes were more likely to report using center-based care. Conversely, lower-income working parents with lower levels of education were more likely to use unlicensed HCC or report using no non-parental care at all. Comparison of parent responses in Ontario, however, where government estimates for the number of licensed and unlicensed HCC spaces are available, revealed that more parents report that their children are in licensed HCC than is possible. The lack of accurate parental reporting calls into question a key assumption of current regulatory systems, which is that parents are informed consumers of ECEC services. Given that many parents misreport the type of HCC their children use, and the equity concerns raised by the overall utilization patterns we found, we argue that governments need to take a more active role in oversight and support of HCC.

Electronic acute medical take - small measures to improve transparency, management, flow and efficiency; a model for the future hospital.

Increasing demands on the emergency department (ED) and acute medicine over the past decade have tested quality and management, unmasking long-accepted inefficient and archaic systems. More robust processes are needed to identify workflow and resource pressures in a more timely manner. Starting at the front door, the referral system between the ED and medicine is obscure and rife with inherent delays and consequent compromised patient care. A lack of transparency confounds performance and collaboration. The medical registrar, often the most experienced doctor on site, is hindered from clinical utility in fielding bleep referrals. Strategies to improve the acute medical take, including optimising the utility and efficiency of the medical registrar, are needed. With the increasing importance of leadership and management as core skills, medical registrars need an opportunity to develop an oversight role, as stated in the JRCPTB quality criteria, while also benefiting their juniors in accessibility for educational purposes.

Evaluate the existing political oversight role of Turkish parliament over the public finance and in this context analyzed the new Turkish Presidential Government System

Turkey changed its 1982 Constitution and adopted a presidential form of government in 2017. This constitutional amendment changed the approval of the budget radically. Along with that, debates may arise in terms of political responsibility for not approved the budget by the Parliament, how the budget will accepted when the president and majority of the Parliament are from different party, and there is not any mechanism being in classical presidential system as public account committee to enhance parliamentary supervision over the executive branch.In this study,- we deliberate the concept of political power in representative democracy in terms of public decision-making and resource allocation process and then we analyze the existing political oversight role of Turkish Parliament over the public finance on the basis of democratic legitimacy of public decision-making process and political accountability. - we focus on oversight role of Turkish Parliament over the public finance at the point of using "power of purse after the Constitutional Amendment adopted on April 16, 2017. Within the context of this analysis, the new constitutional structure of Parliament's budget approval and audit process in Turkish Parliament was evaluated.

Electronic acute medical take – small measures to improve transparency, management, flow and efficiency; a model for the future hospital

Increasing demands on the emergency department (ED) and acute medicine over the past decade have tested quality and management, unmasking long-accepted inefficient and archaic systems. More robust processes are needed to identify workflow and resource pressures in a more timely manner. Starting at the front door, the referral system between the ED and medicine is obscure and rife with inherent delays and consequent compromised patient care. A lack of transparency confounds performance and collaboration. The medical registrar, often the most experienced doctor on site, is hindered from clinical utility in fielding bleep referrals. Strategies to improve the acute medical take, including optimising the utility and efficiency of the medical registrar, are needed. With the increasing importance of leadership and management as core skills, medical registrars need an opportunity to develop an oversight role, as stated in the JRCPTB quality criteria, while also benefiting their juniors in accessibility for educational purposes.

Invisible and Visible Hands in Uganda’s Secondary Education Market

In this article we analysed market and government mechanisms in Uganda’s Secondary Education Market (USEM) using Adam Smith’s invisible hand of economic rationality preposition. We highlighted: the rationale for USEM and the distinction between education industry and market, the market concept in relation to USEM, relationship between visible and invisible hands in USEM, accountability measure in USEM, and examples of market and government failure. We concluded that since all successful markets are subject to effective regulation, the visible hand must superintend its invisible counterpart more effectively. Finally, we recommend the need for the visible hand to strengthen its oversight role, mobilize more resources and improve accountability measures; otherwise, expansion of secondary education will be a misspent investment if the invisible and visible hands are left to fail.

Chinese Engagement of Zimbabwe and the Limits of Elite Agency

This article contends that Zimbabwe’s agency in its engagement with China has been limited and at best circumscribed. This owes to factors such as indifference by state authorities to cooperation with civil society actors in negotiating with Chinese actors, the desperation of the The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front regime in the face of isolation by erstwhile partners as well as the opacity and secrecy that characterizes significant areas of the Zimbabwe–China relationship. The pressing need for critical institutions such as parliament to play independent oversight roles as well as the creation of space for civil society watchdog functions are highlighted as key enablers if Zimbabwean agency is to generate positive gains from the country’s engagement with China.

Beyond committees: parliamentary oversight of coalition government in Britain

A legislature’s ability to engage in oversight of the executive is believed to derive largely from its committee system. For example, powerful parliamentary committees are considered a necessary condition for the legislature to help police policy compromises between parties in multiparty government. But can other parliamentary instruments perform this role? This article suggests parliamentary questions as an alternative parliamentary vehicle for coalition parties to monitor their partners. Questions force ministers to reveal information concerning their legislative and extra-legislative activities, providing coalition members unique insights into their partners’ behaviour. In order to test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010‒2015 coalition. As expected, government MPs ask more questions as the divisiveness of a policy area increases. Legislatures conventionally considered weak due to the lack of strong committees may nevertheless play an important oversight role through other parliamentary devices, including helping to police the implementation of coalition agreements.

Feasibility of simple machine learning approaches to support detection of non-glaucomatous visual fields in future automated glaucoma clinics.

To assess the performance of feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural networks (ANNs) in detecting field defects caused by pituitary disease from among a glaucomatous population. 24-2 Humphrey Visual Field reports were gathered from 121 pituitary patients and 907 glaucomatous patients. Optical character recognition was used to extract the threshold values from PDF reports. Left and right eye visual fields were coupled for each patient in an array to create bilateral field representations. ANNs were created to detect chiasmal field defects. We also assessed the ability of ANNs to identify a single pituitary field among 907 glaucomatous distractors. Mean field thresholds across all locations were lower for pituitary patients (20.3 dB, SD = 5.2 dB) than for glaucoma patients (24.4 dB, SD = 5.0 dB) indicating a greater degree of field loss (p < 0.0001) in the pituitary group. However, substantial overlap between the groups meant that mean bilateral field loss was not a reliable indicator of aetiology. Representative ANNs showed good performance in the discrimination task with sensitivity and specificity routinely above 95%. Where a single pituitary field was hidden among 907 glaucomatous fields, it had one of the five highest indexes of suspicion on 91% of 2420 ANNs. Traditional artificial neural networks perform well at detecting chiasmal field defects among a glaucoma cohort by inspecting bilateral field representations. Increasing automation of care means we will need robust methods of automatically diagnosing and managing disease. This work shows that machine learning can perform a useful role in diagnostic oversight in highly automated glaucoma clinics, enhancing patient safety.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) in UK surgical trials: a survey and focus groups with stakeholders to identify practices, views, and experiences

Background and aimsHistorically, patient and public involvement (PPI) in the design and conduct of surgical trials has been absent or minimal, but it is now routinely recommended and even required by some research funders. We aimed to identify and describe current PPI practice in surgical trials in the United Kingdom, and to explore the views and experiences of surgical trial staff and patient or public contributors in relation to these practices. This was part of a larger study to inform development of a robust PPI intervention aimed at improving recruitment and retention in surgical trials.MethodsOur study had two stages: 1) an online survey to identify current PPI practice in active UK-led, adult surgical trials; and 2) focus groups and interviews with key stakeholders (surgical trial investigators, administrators, and patient or public contributors) to explore their views and experiences of PPI.ResultsOf 129 eligible surgical trial teams identified, 71 (55%) took part in the survey. In addition, 54 stakeholders subsequently took part in focus groups or interviews. Sixty-five (92%) survey respondents reported some kind of PPI, most commonly at the design and dissemination stages and in oversight or advisory roles. The single most common PPI activity was developing participant information sheets (72%). Participants reported mixed practice and views on a variety of issues including the involvement of patients versus lay members of the public, recruitment methods, use of role descriptions and payment for the time of PPI contributors. They suggested some solutions, including the use of written role descriptions and databases of potential PPI contributors to aid recruitment.ConclusionsUK surgical trials involve patients and members of the public in a variety of different ways, most commonly at the beginning and end of the trial lifecycle and in oversight or advisory roles. These are not without challenges and there remain uncertainties about who best to involve, why, and how. Future research should aim to address these issues.

Privacy by Infrastructure: The Unresolved Case of the Domain Name System

Digital privacy concerns are primarily viewed through the lens of personal data and content. But beneath the layer of content, less visible issues of infrastructure design and administration raise significant privacy concerns. The Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) is one such terrain. There is already a great deal of attention around how the DNS intersects with freedom of speech, trademark disputes, cybersecurity challenges, and geopolitical power struggles in the aftermath of transitioning the historic U.S. oversight role to the global multistakeholder Internet governance community. However, the privacy implications embedded in the technical architecture of the DNS have received less attention, perhaps because these issues are concealed within complex technical arrangements outside of public view. This article explores privacy issues in the DNS by examining two contemporary, and still unresolved, case studies: the WHOIS system as a de facto Internet identity system revealing website registrants; and privacy in domain name queries, which have historically been unencrypted and therefore reveal personal information about what sites individuals visit. DNS privacy challenges not only demonstrate the important connection between infrastructure and rights, but also exemplify how cross‐border, universal technologies come into conflict with the bounded laws of nation states. It is a critical moment of opportunity to examine these cases because their resolution will help determine the future of basic privacy rights online.

Corporate Reporting on Human Rights and Modern Slavery: From Disclosure to Accountability?

The proliferation of human rights disclosure and due diligence laws around the globe is a welcome development in the area of business and human rights. Corresponding improvement in conditions for workers and communities in global supply chains whose human rights are impacted by businesses has not materialized, however. In this article, we focus on the oversight and enforcement features of human rights disclosure and due diligence laws as among the missing links to achieving the accountability objectives envisaged by such legislation. Drawing on our analysis of the key legislative developments, we observe and critique that the state has almost completely withdrawn itself from the oversight and enforcement roles and assigned these crucial accountability functions solely to consumers, civil society, and investors. Without a regulatory mechanism to ensure quality of human rights disclosures and due diligence processes and impose sanctions for failing to comply with the laws, not only may the disclosures and processes be inadequate, but there is a danger that misleading disclosures and flawed processes may mask harmful impacts and be detrimental to any hopes of vindicating the rights of workers and communities in global supply chains. We offer a new perspective on a more effective approach to oversight and enforcement in which the state should function as a key actor through which consumers, civil society, and investors can hold businesses accountable.