Cape Town - Although the standard of the annual reports of many government departments was improving, too many still contained incomprehensible insider jargon and were short on details of what had been achieved rather than what had been done, it emerged yesterday.

In a special review tabled in parliament, the Public Service Commission (PSC) singled out the report by the SA Police Service as being possibly the worst, slating it as "little more than a public relations document".

The review was a follow-up to a 1999 study that had been sharply critical of the reporting standards followed by most government departments.

It had made a number of recommendations in line with the Public Finance Management Act on ways standards could be improved.

After examining a random sample of the 2000/01 annual reports of 10 departments, the PSC found that "in general ... it is pleasing that the standard of annual reports has improved and we hope that this trend will continue in coming years".

It recommended, however, that reporting standards be further tightened up to improve reporting on programmes and human resource development.

The PSC criticised the fact that departments tended to scatter information on key topics throughout their reports, which made it difficult to follow the rationale or to link the information to that provided in the National Estimates of Expenditure released by the treasury

Although most reports dealt with staffing issues, they tended to concentrate on "figures for the sake of giving figures".

Instead, they should provide details on how departments were using information on issues such as job evaluations, pay levels, employment equity, sick leave, performance management or disciplinary measures to improve service delivery.

There was also little or no indication of how the figures fitted in with national priorities and strategies.

When it came to dealing with departmental programmes, too many reports still concentrated on "activities rather than the achievement of desired results", the PSC said.

Financial reporting mostly met set standards but was unfortunately "often presented very inaccessibly", using technical jargon and lots of statistics that were not interpreted. Little effort was made to explain the statements to the lay person.

The type of information provided about legislation generated or the department's organisational structure tended to be inconsistent.

Although the treasury had now finalised a comprehensive guide for annual reports, it was not clear how well its existence had been publicised.

The guide could also possibly be further refined to spell out more clearly the level of detail needed to properly prepare annual reports, the PSC said.

With acknowledgements to Lynda Loxton and the Business Report.