QUESTION 1

You are a financial management consultant brought in by the Controlling officer (CO) of the Department for Internal Security (DIS) in Zambia. The department handles, among other areas, the policing of Zambia. The CO is a government employee reporting to the Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security. The Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security is an elected politician appointed by the President of Zambia.

The government of Zambia has recently changed government and the new Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security, Jackie Chan has instructed the CO of the DIS to improve the performance of the Zambia Police (ZP) by implementing the Ministers new mission statement for ZP: to protect the community and prevent crime while providing a value for money service. Since ZP is funded wholly through Zambias general taxation, the CO wants to be able to report on whether

ZP is providing a value for money (VFM) service as required by the new mission statement. He has heard of the 3Es but needs an explanation of these three headings. Then, he requires an evaluation, using the data given in Appendix 1, of whether ZP provides such a service. He understands that the evaluation may be limited, as Appendix 1 may not give a data set to perform a full VFM exercise.

Appendix 1 Zambia Police data for each year ending 31 December

	2021	2020	2019
Population (000s)	11,880	11,761	11,644
Number of police officers	37,930	38,005	38,400
Number of administrative staff	12,320	12,197	12,075
Number of crimes reported in the year	541,735	530,900	520,282
Number of violent crimes reported in the year	108,347	106,180	104,056
Number of crimes solved in the year	297,954	300,934	303,943
Number of complaints Response to an incident within the allocated time limit Cost of police force for the year (ZMWmillion)	7,624 84% 2,248	7,512 86% 2,226	7,483 87% 2,203
Staff costs (all staff including police officers) (ZMWmillion)	2,026	2,103	2,141

Required

(i) Identify and explain the 3Es as per VfM framework. (12 marks)

(ii) Using appendix 1, evaluate whether ZP is providing VfM services. (13 marks)