The Citizen Care Units Only Helped 35% Of the City’s Citizens It Was Supposed to Aid
<p style="text-align: justify;">The City Audit detected a diversion of almost 2.5 million of people who were supposed to receive aid and those who actually did. The data generated by these centers do not allow reliable statistics to help make decisions because, for example, repeated categories were found in the databases. The lack of visibility of some offices was also noted.</p>
For the entire 2014 Citizen Units (UACs, for its acronym in Spanish) it should serve 3.8 million people. However, a report of the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) reveals that it only “reached 1.3 million," so it follows that "there was a deviation from the planned targets of 65%."
The UACs have among their functions to turn, receive complaints or claims, providing information on procedures or referrals to the 147 line and orders by the Website of the City, just to mention a few.
All these tasks "are performed through the System Management NQ that although it was acquired by the Directorate General of Care Neighborhood, both shares their use." One of the consequences of joint use, according to the AGCBA observed, “is the use of different names for the same category."
For example, the formalities relating to consumer protection identified under the following names: consumer protection, consumer advocacy, consumer advocacy and consumer protection. In fact, "a general summary of 70 guest auditors debug managed no more than 15."
This multiplicity, the report says in the 2014 report, "hinders the export of clear and reliable statistics that facilitate rapid decision-making and management evaluation."
Citizen Units work in community venues. The audit toured some of them. On the seat of Commune 2 it highlighted "the lack of signals that allows citizen to identify." It is located on 3rd and 4th floor of Recoleta shopping mall, located in Vicente López 2050.
Something similar happens with the Community Headquarters 5 which "is on the side of a dry square with perimeter walls in the rest of its sides, with no sign of their existence."
The UACs were created in 2011 under a decree which "does not provide the figure of a charge for each unit or a hierarchical scale range." Consequently, "they do not have formal designation of coordinators". In addition, "the responsibilities assigned to the units have been undefined."
On the other hand, "the organizational structure does not have enough responsibilities to contribute to internal control." This situation adds that "protocols with ministries that are responsible for the decentralized services are not formalized, so as to be able to establish the characteristics of each procedure."
