"Everything is just as fine," sang Viejas Locas, a band led by Pity Álvarez, back in 1999. But in the case of the Training and Inclusion Program for the Buenos Aires Work, it's almost the other way around.

The Audit Office of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) conducted a follow-up audit of the program and found that "out of a total of 19 observations, 11 did not show progress, representing almost 60% of the total sample." For its part, "six cases had an incipient advance while only two evolved satisfactorily."

The Training and Inclusion for Work Program, carried out by the General Directorate of Social Economy (DGES, for its acronym in Spanish), was created in 2008 to "include people in conditions of social vulnerability by offering them tools for their insertion in the world of work."

It is intended for citizens, over 18 years of age, who do not receive any other benefit and prove that they are in poverty with the ANSES Negative Certification. The amount of the non-remunerative social grant amounts to 25% of the Vital and Mobile Minimum Salary at the time of grant. 

The cases that do not present great changes refer to issues such as the lack of registration of unsatisfied demand, mechanisms of control of presentismo and shortages of human resources.

Thus, for example, the report that evaluated 2012-2015 and was approved in November 2016 emphasizes that "there are no mechanisms of cross-control that allow knowing the concurrence of the beneficiaries." It is that the DGES "orders the payment of the scholarships to the beneficiaries and to the training institutions according to the lists of monthly presentismo that these last send." 

The observation that the Training Institutions "failed to comply with the Convention obliges them to submit a monthly report on the performance of each student and a final report of the course on overall performance" is also maintained.

Faced with this, the Operative Manager states that the organizations in charge "claim not to be in operative conditions" to fulfill this obligation. Although actions are planned to remedy the situation, the Audit found that "until now they were not implemented."

Another work that had an unsatisfactory progress is related to the reports or records of interviews with the beneficiaries, which are essential when following each one of the cases.

The auditee said that "it performs the files and that they are in different modules". However, the Buenos Aires Audit "could not verify" that the modules contain all the necessary information to carry out the follow-up of cases, such as "the reports of tutorials, both group and individual."

Among those of satisfactory progress is the publicity of the program, which directly affects the attendance. From the initiative they stated that because they "do not have the budget to advertise in mass media" they do so through the channels available as the headquarters of the Zonal Social Services of the communes, with brochures in the training institutions and the websites of The City, among others. This situation picture "improved considerably" so that, for the AGCBA, "the observation is fulfilled."

Finally, among the observations that had an "incipient" progress highlights the improvement that was in the system of archiving and backup of documentation. Previously the circuit was considered "precarious and informal" and could "significantly affect the Internal Control of the General Directorate of Social Economy."

The auditors were able to observe that the system "was digitized, which facilitates the tasks of access to the information of each beneficiary." However, much remains to be done because "the data is not loaded fully or in time as it is scanned individually and the program does not have the operational capability to do so immediately."