Control Self Assessment in the 1990s: The UK Perspective

This paper addresses the current state of the art of control self assessment (CSA) practice in the UK. Three key areas are used to provide a view of strategic, tactical and operational elements: a broad overview of the FT ‘Top 50’; a case study of audit practice in a university, and a review of the impact of group decision support systems (GDSS) on CSA. The overview was based on a survey of the ‘Top 50’ companies listed on the FTSE, while the other two elements were based on structured interviews. From this, three main research questions were developed to enable the research team to evaluate the impact of CSA at three management levels. The conclusions are that CSA is widely seen as a beneficial practice, although it may not be repeated after the first exercise. It was found that CSA is seen as a useful method of evaluating non‐financial systems, such as are found in universities. Finally, it was found that, while GDSS have a role to play in the implementation of CSA, the technological factor is not considered to be as important as effective facilitation skills by workshop leaders.