An official report by Audit Scotland revealed some problems in the preparations for the 2004 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The report was revealed several days after a budget increase.

A first problem is the costs. They keep increasing, this week was announced the costs have risen from £373m to £454m.

Second of all several of the venues won't be ready by the dates suggested. For example: the National Indoor Sports Arena had to be completed by March next year, but this date has been postponed to the end of 2011.

The deputy auditor general said it will be necessary the organisers keep the coast uder control.

Because there's only a limited budget which the government can't keep increasing, they will have to cut something else, if costs keep rising.

I can understand why a government wants to organise the Olympic Games: it's a boost for the economy of the country. It creates a lot of new jobs (direct jobs and indirect jobs as well), it attracts a lot of extra tourists and much more. But on the other hand it's a big challenge for a country to organise the Games. First of all there are the high costs for building infrastructure (like sporst arenas and an Olympic village), creating good transportation en so on.

In times like this it's extra important to audit the preparations because the government budget is already under a high pressure and the government can't hardly afford extra costs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8366811.stm

Immigration officials to audit 1,000 more companies

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants to audit 1,000 companies because they want to know if there are illegal immigrants have been hired. It happens frequently that companies want to make dishonest profit and using illegal immigrants is the only way to make this profit because they aren’t registered, they receive a low salary and they won’t protest because they have fear to be dismissed.

This audit is a two-pronged strategy. They want to tackle the companies hardly which recruit illegal immigrants. They reward also the companies which try to be honestly and use legal workers.
The government ask the American people to cooperate with the strategy. They want to introduce a label on the products of companies which doesn’t hire illegal immigrants, so that customers know they don’t buy products of dishonest companies. The strategy contains also a administrative obligation, if a company accept an employee, the employee has to fill in a special form to check whether the person is in order to recruit.
This is a strategy of president Obama. First he wants to examine the identity forms if there are irregularities. And if irregularities are found, the companies may then be fined for lax monitoring.

In the first audit there were 654 companies had been examined and 267 companies have to pay a penalty. But the consequence of this audit is that there are many discharges for example in a garment factory in downtown Los Angeles. After a federal audit turned up irregularities in identity documents of the workers. The consequence: about 1,800 immigrant employees are fired, that’s more than a quarter of its work force.

I think it’s a good idea to reward honest companies and to punish dishonest companies. Obama also use a very good strategy: to audit the firms and do no raids at the workplace which can avoid trauma’s and deportation. But if they do this audit there are also many illegal immigrants who will be fired like in the last example of the garment factory. I find it very terrible for those people who are dismissed. Maybe the government has to look first at the problem that there are many illegal immigrants. The government has to solve this problem first before auditing the companies.

Read the article.

Home Energy Audit

Some of the largest energy wasters in houses are dirty filters, open windows, open fireplace dampers, poor ventilation, improper thermostat settings, poor insulation,... In the US most houselholds lose $400 a year because of these energy wasters. And actually, saving this money is really easy: by doing a home energy audit. 'Wake Forest Power' offers this free audits by creating a program that helps their customers to save energy at their houses. The 'Towns Residential Energy Auditor' visits houses of customers and helps them to find more specific ways to save energy, if they request for this. The auditor checks windows, doors, isolation, the water heather,... In this way the auditor helps households to save hundreds of dollars.

I think it's a very good idea of 'Wake Forest Power' to offer free home energy audits to US households. It's not only good for the energy bills of these households but also for the environment because every bit can help to reduce the heating up of the world! Maybe it's a good idea to stimulate every household to do such audits and especially people who are building a new house to search for advice how they can build their house with attention to energy saving. This would be good for everyone's future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aye-vE8l49s

New Auditing Feature in Save-a-Deal 2010 Designed to Protect Dealerships From Fraud and Theft

I have chosen an aspect of auditing that not everyone is very familiar with.
Namely software. Automotive Software has come up with a new kind of software and services for the automotive retail industry.

Who is Automotive software? It’s an operating subsidiary of Optical Systems. It’s main goal is to develop technology and services for the automotive retail industry designed to maximize productivity and increase profits at auto dealerships.

Save a deal version 2009, it’s the company flagship product and they made it even better with the addition of an all-new fraud and theft audit report.

How does it work? The software makes sure that’s the dealerships don’t get ripped off. It protects them from fraud, theft, abuse and waste. By having an advanced date mining and security features the software “Save a deal” creates an audit form. How? Due analyzing the inventory and customers. It’s designed to maximize the profitability of the dealerships.

A small overview of some new features. The most important aspect in software is to make sure that your data is secure. As of that: the security has 3 levels. The second aspect is speed. You get real-time access to up to 200,000 databases.

The main goal of the software is to give a report to provide finance managers with air-tight audits and unparalleled security.

Conclusion

If the software isn’t priced too high and when it actually works, I think it’s a great investment for all the dealerships. You have a good overview of all your shops.

source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/34106437/site/14081545

Fighting for a peaceful, pain-free death

People with cancer die a painful death. These people need to be put on the Liverpool Care Pathway. But a national audit revealed some lacks in its quality.

The terminally-ill persons are scared to be put on the LCP. This is a NHS palliative care program for patients who will die soon. This care program includes nutrition, hydration, and everything the person needs. And they also give them morphine and sedatives to stop the pain for a moment.

But in September, a group of doctors wrote to The Daily Telegraph. They said LCP caused a lot of deaths. For example, they don’t feed certain people. The same month, there has been a national audit. One of its results was that more than 25% of families didn’t know when a family member were put on the LCP.

Thanks to this audit, the architects of the LCP will give a revised version of the guidelines on Wednesday. One of the new guidelines, is that the family will know when their relatives will be put on the LCP.

According to some doctors, they do what’s best. So when they stop feeding the sick people, it’s due to inability to cope with the food and fluids. And If they continued to feed them, their lungs would waterlog. They say it’s just a misunderstanding. But the clinicians should be educated for some matters. For example, they shouldn’t give up op patients too quickly. Because there can always be a chance of surviving it.


I think, even if the terminally-ill person is dying, you should try to help him/her. The clinicians always keep in mind they’re very sick. So they don’t have any hope, which there actually is. Every individual is unique, which means they don’t react the same way. It would be better if they’d examine every person. I know it takes a lot of time. But it could save lives. In addition, I think it’s unbelievable that they don’t tell relatives when they moved onto the LCP. It’s still someone you love and respect. So they should at least give the information, the family needs. I’m glad they did this audit. Now, people think twice before they send their family member there.


Read the article here

Access audits for DDA

During my search for a new subject for my weakly blog I came across an article with the title:"Access Audits for DDA". I had no idea what DDA meant so I did some research. DDA stands for "disability discrimination acts", it's a term given to all laws aimed at reducing discrimination against people with disabilities. Later on other forms of anti-discrimination laws were added to the term DDA (ex. Laws to reduce racial discrimination and sexism) Now I knew what the article was about it attracted my attention. It was a short article about how you, as organization, can make sure disabled people can find their way in your buildings.

The main reason why the article caught my attention was because in my primary school my best friend was disabled: he used a wheelchair. To make sure he could safely move around there were little adaptations around the school premises. That's also what's mentioned in the article: it's not necessary to remove a building when it's not adapted. But it's possible to make the life of disabled people more easy by making some little changes in buildings that aren't adapted. And that's why I think it could be a good idea to audit buildings because it's not always easy to know what the difficulties are for people with a disability.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ictcoach/accessibility/aad_p1.shtml

Were problems missed in rest home audit? Ministry checking

Due to the closure of an age-care facility in Palmerston North, the ministry of Health will look into the audit procedures. There has been an introducing of spot audits, so they will do the audit in general, for all the rest homes.

The audit came after a member of the Ros A Lea complained about the quality of the rest home. The worker, who has been in the industry for 21 years, told she wouldn’t even let her dog live there. But the Ministry said it was okay. Until the MidCentral District Health Board started its own audit, and closed it down.

There was one woman there, who was tied to her bed with a sheet. But she claims they took care of her, and that she has no complaints. In the mean while, she passed away. But her daughter claims she would have died several years ago, if she wasn’t in that rest home.

Thanks to what her family sais, the Aged Care Association doubts if the DHB did good, to close it down. Ros A Lea had a good reputation, until this incident happened. They think the DHB acted this cautious, due to the scandal of Auckland's Belhaven rest home, last year. But the DHB responds by saying there was no other choice, because they’ve breached the standards. At the time of the audit in March, the rest home didn’t have a warrant of fitness.

I think it was truly necessary to do this audit. As I read what the worker told about what happened there, I really felt sorry for the persons who live there. I mean, aged people need to be taken care of, very well. If this doesn’t happen as it should be, they can die. And I do think it’s strange that the DHB closed it down, but the Ministry of Health didn’t see anything wrong. I guess this tells a lot about the quality of the Ministry of Health..

read the article here