Checking a monthly disposal report before signature
In January a divisional office of a transmission utility received 1,860 inward letters and despatched 1,540 replies. Of the 1,540 despatched, 1,180 were replies issued within seven days of receipt; the remaining 360 took longer. The office worked 25 days in January. A clerk's draft monthly report states: 'Disposal performance: 90% of letters disposed of within the prescribed seven days; average disposal 74 letters per day; pendency nil.' Of the 320 letters still not disposed of on 31 January, 46 had not yet been put up to any branch at all. Separately, 372 of the inward letters carried an 'urgent' stamp, and 95 of those urgent letters were among the pending ones. The divisional head asks you, as the reporting clerk, to verify the three claims and to propose a workable target for February before she signs the report.
1. Check each of the three claims in the draft report, showing your calculations and stating which claim is false and why.
Read the worked answer
Claim 1 - '90% disposed within seven days': false. The correct base is the number despatched, not the number received. 1,180 ÷ 1,540 = 76.6%. Even on the more lenient base of all inward letters, 1,180 ÷ 1,860 = 63.4%. Neither figure reaches 90%; the clerk appears to have rounded up or used an assumed figure.
Claim 2 - 'average disposal 74 letters per day': mislabelled. 1,860 ÷ 25 = 74.4, which is the average receipt per working day. Disposal per working day is 1,540 ÷ 25 = 61.6. So the office received about 74 and cleared about 62 each day - a net addition of roughly 13 letters a day, which is why a backlog built up.
Claim 3 - 'pendency nil': false. 1,860 − 1,540 = 320 letters pending on 31 January. The only way to reach 'nil' is to count only letters that were despatched and ignore both the undisposed inward letters and the 46 untouched ones.
So two of the three claims are plainly wrong and the third uses the wrong quantity under the right label - the report cannot be signed as drafted.
2. What pendency figure and break-up should the report actually show, and how should the 46 untouched letters and the 95 pending urgent letters be treated?
Read the worked answer
Pendency figure: 320 letters, i.e. 17.2% of the 1,860 received (320 ÷ 1,860). The report should give the figure in absolute terms and as a percentage, with an age-wise break-up (0–7 days, 8–30 days, over 30 days) rather than a single number.
The 46 untouched letters are the most serious item and must be shown separately, not merged into a general 'under process' figure. A letter that has not reached any branch is not 'in process' - it has no owner and no clock running. The report should state: '46 letters received in January not yet put up to any branch; reasons being ascertained; to be put up by 7 February.'
The 95 pending urgent letters should be reported as a separate line with a deadline, because urgency is a service commitment, not a label. Of the 372 urgent letters received, 277 were disposed (74.5%) and 95 remain - a shortfall that the head will be asked about.
Reporting these two lines separately is what makes the report useful: a single '320 pending' hides both the ownership failure and the urgency failure.
3. Propose a realistic disposal target for February with reasoning, and state one staffing or work-practice change that would make it achievable.
Read the worked answer
Reasoning base. February has roughly 24 working days; receipts may be assumed near the January rate of about 74 a day, say 1,780 letters. A target that merely matches disposal to receipts (about 62 a day at January's rate) leaves the 320 backlog untouched, so the target must include a backlog draw-down.
Proposed target:
- Clear the 46 untouched letters within the first week (about 10 a day in addition to normal work).
- Dispose of all 95 pending urgent letters within 10 days.
- Achieve at least 90% timely disposal measured on despatched letters, and reduce total pendency from 320 to not more than 240 by 28 February.
- Report timeliness on the despatch base, not the receipt base, so the figure cannot be inflated again.
Work-practice change: assign one clerk exclusively to the oldest and urgent pendency for the first fortnight, oldest-first, with a daily 15-minute register review by the head clerk. This treats the backlog as a separate workstream instead of adding it to the same queue that is already falling behind by about 13 letters a day.