Investigative agencies save taxpayers billions of dollars every year. More important than even the money saved, however, is the fact that it gives taxpayers confidence in the administration of the agencies that they fund. Without this confidence, they likely wouldn’t support funding even the most critical government agencies.
Taxpayer confidence comes from the belief that the agency has processes in place to achieve the best results. Employees are paid according to their contribution to the agency, not because of political maneuvering. Vendors are selected according to the value they can provide to the agency, not because of bribes or relationships with agency staff. Projects are pursued based on how much they benefit taxpayers, not because of what politician pushes the issue. The key to ensuring that this is true, and continues to be true, is to build and follow processes.
Agencies provide places for citizens and/or employees to lodge complaints when they believe that a decision wasn’t the result of a well-administered process. For fraudulent actions, that place is the investigative office.
Because it’s an investigative office’s job to determine how well agencies are following processes, it’s critical that the team’s own processes are consistent. There’s little reason for taxpayers to have confidence in any of the agency processes if the agency’s oversight is handled differently from one case to another.
Each case of the same type and financial significance should receive the same level of attention, go through the same investigative process, and face the same burden of proof. This should be true regardless of the investigators assigned to the case or the seniority of the employee(s) involved. To do otherwise risks more than just the agency’s credibility with taxpayers – it also opens investigators to accusations of discrimination and bias.
How much confidence do you have that your processes ensure similar treatment for similar cases regardless of the assigned investigator? Can you defend the consistency of your process with aggregated case data demonstrating similar treatment of similar cases? If you have confidence in the consistency of your own processes, it’s much easier to have confidence in your team’s ability to ensure fairness throughout the rest of the agency.
To learn how CMTS can help your investigative agency close cases more efficiently and consistently, call us at 855-636-5361 or email us at Team_CMTS@securecasemanagement.com.