Audit Board Internal Work Evaluation Revamped... Higher Grades for Greater 'Social Impact'

From Score-Based to 'Grade-Based' System... "Unreliable to Reflect Individual Work Ability with Complex Evaluation Indicators"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) will change its internal evaluation system to assign higher grades to audit matters with significant social impact and importance from the perspective of the nation and its citizens. The core of the change is switching from a scoring system to a grading system, as the previous evaluation method made it difficult to assess individual work performance.

On the 14th, the BAI announced a reform plan for audit operations reflecting these changes.

On this day, the BAI explained the background of the reform plan, stating, "We will reorganize the internal operation system to prioritize accurate diagnosis of tasks directly related to national development and citizens' lives and support the prompt preparation of solutions." It added, "We will abolish the existing scoring-based internal work evaluation system, which was complex and subdivided into evaluation indicators, making it unreliable in reflecting actual individual work capabilities." This means that audit matters with greater social impact and importance from the national and citizen perspective will be assigned higher grades.

First, through internal evaluations by grade, the highest grade will be S, followed by grades A through D in descending order, making a total of five grades. The accumulated results will be used for promotions and management of specialized positions.

Additionally, the authority for on-site investigations such as digital forensics and financial transaction information collection, which previously required approval from executives at level 1 or higher, will have the approval steps reduced and be delegated to the heads of divisions or departments responsible for on-site audits. When collecting digital evidence, the previous standard of "refusal of written requests two or more times" was prone to misuse for evasion such as data deletion. This has been revised to focus on the fundamental principles of "necessity," "supplementarity," and "relevance."

Furthermore, the BAI plans to abolish or simplify unnecessary internal documents and forms and revise regulations that impose burdens on audited institutions or excessively restrict the behavior of on-site staff. To move away from intimidating audit rooms, regulations requiring all interview spaces to have round tables will be flexibly applied according to the circumstances of each institution.

A BAI official stated, "We will continue internal reforms so that all employees can unite and become an agile organization that promptly responds to the voices of the people." The official added, "As the nation's highest audit institution, we will enhance the quality of internal audit institution reviews and make every effort to ensure transparency and accountability in the public sector."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.