Human resource audits in the public sector

Few public institutions can say with confidence how many people they employ, where those people are posted, and whether every name on the payroll corresponds to somebody at work. Establishments grow by transfer, secondment and emergency appointment; records are kept in several places at once; and the payroll quietly stops agreeing with the nominal roll.

A human resource audit reconciles the three. It verifies staff physically against the nominal roll, checks appointment, confirmation and promotion records against what is being paid, tests qualifications and dates of birth against the documents on file, and identifies duplicated, ghost and irregular entries. The output is a defensible establishment figure, a cleaned payroll, and a schedule of exceptions the institution can act on.

Our firm has carried out this work at scale for state institutions, including a human resource audit spanning the twenty-one general hospitals of the Nasarawa State Hospital Management Board — a multi-site engagement where the same procedures had to be applied consistently across facilities with very different record-keeping practices.

Human resource audits sit alongside, not inside, the statutory audit. Institutions considering one are welcome to discuss scope and timing with us.