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SEBASTIAN KRZYSZTOF BENTKOWSKI
THE DETERMINANTS OF ASSURING THE QUALITY IN THE
ACTIVITIES OF THE CONTROL BODIES
The multitude and variety of the inspections carried out by the
control bodies within the framework of using the public resources
involves the particular care of the quality of the control activities. The
analysis of working the institutions which dispose the public resources,
according to the criteria of legality, reliability, intentionality and
economy, allows, among others, to define the areas which require an
increase or decrease of the formality and it also allows to indicate the
irregularity in the realization of the tasks. The after control materials
constitute the basis of undertaking a series of management and
supervisory activities, and they are an important source of evidence for
the investigative authorities.
Care of the quality of control is determined also by the external
evaluation of Polish control bodies, carried out within the framework of
the so called partnership investigations, or during the common controls
with the international and the Union control institutions, e.g. in the years
2003 -2009 the European Court of Auditors together with the Supreme
Audit Institution carried out 53 inspections of using the Union resources.
The notion of quality was defined differently over the years. For
example, Plato used the notion of quality in relation to the things. He
defined the quality in terms of the level of perfection achieved by the
objects. Aristotle defined the quality as a set of features which distinguish
the given object from the others1. Some more contemporary definitions
extend a range of the notion of quality. A development of the
administration sciences, and particularly orienting this domain towards
providing for the clients’ needs, caused the popularization of the idea of
the quality assurance. The propagators of this direction, by the quality
name, describe a degree of providing for the clients’ needs and satisfying
the clients’ requirements (I. Oakland), the correspondence of a product
with the specific requirements (P.B. Crosby), a predictable degree of
homogeneity and reliability at possibly low costs and the adjustment to
the market requirements (W.E. Deming)2. According to W.E. Deming
and J.M . Juran the name of quality does not only refer to the things or
1 J.J. DAHLAORD, K. KRISTENSEN, G.K. KANJI, The bases of quality management,
Warszawa 2000, p. 25.
2 J. Bank: Management through quality, Warszawa 1996, p. 88.