While the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) finds that the National Examinations Directorate (DNF) is a pioneer in the field of management control within the scope of the national government, said the operation is in an “initial face”.

The Department of Examinations conducted by the National Plan for the Regulation of Labor. The project was launched in 2003 in response to a high level of employment "under the table"- which that year reached 50% - and its main objective is "to achieve full registration of all workers through labor inspection."

Each inspection includes four stages in which different tasks are performed: control, verification, overview, and refiscalization.

In this last stage, being conducted by the Directorate of Monitoring and Control (DSyC), work is done in homes where inspections had already been made with the aim of comparing the new observations with information obtained in the first visit and aims to assess "the quality of the audit."

While the AGN acknowledges in its report, adopted this year, "the FCD constitutes a precursor to the implementation of air management control system within the scope of the Civil Service," it adds that the control is still "in the “initial stage" and that "it is necessary to improve operational and administrative models."

In reaching this conclusion, the AGN analyzed 309 of 1.546 procedures of "refiscalizacion", developed in 2008. Of the total number of homes with a history of irregularities, 87 became cases with failures, accounting for 28%. Despite this fact, the audit indicates that it is still pending by the Directorate of Monitoring and Control issuing statistical reports integrators "to help develop conclusions on the quality" of the verifications.

The AGN says "no indicators were developed to assess the quality of management of the National Inspection and each of the areas that integrate the directorate," and that while in the planning stage there are some landmarks they "could not verify the monitoring, control, and subsequent behavioral analysis" of these indexes.

Inspections

In 2008 the Department inspected a total of 85,304 establishments a 31.62% less than in 2007. According to the audited body, this decrease was caused by an "increase in the quality of audits."

However, these 85,304 inspections were far from achieving the goal set for this year, just below 34.38%. The Directorate also justified this fact by saying that, "in addition to examination activities, reporting, and detection tasks of unregistered employment is carried out which therefore meant that there wasn’t enough time and the goal could not be reached." However, the AGN argued that those reasons "should be considered and incorporated into the program to take into account the goal established for the period."

However, as indicated by the National Board of Supervisors, "the detection of unregistered workers gradually improved with the implementation of the plan: from 21.9% in 2003/2004 increased to 31.2% in 2008”.