Clerical and Administrative Skills
This domain tests the paperwork that proves an office acted: dak registers, file notings, dispatch records, statutory registers and staff records.
Dak and files
- Inward letter: receive, stamp the date of receipt, enter serial number, date, sender and subject in the dak register, then put up to the officer concerned.
- Outward letter: fair copy, dispatch register entry, despatch, and the acknowledgement filed with the case.
- Files carry page numbers, a noting portion and a correspondence portion; every note is dated and signed, and approval moves up the hierarchy.
- Registers every office must keep include stock and asset, stationery, movement, cash book, complaint and attendance.
Staff records and rules
- Each employee has a service book recording appointment, pay, leave and posting; APARs are written annually; leave follows the CCS (Leave) Rules and travelling allowance follows the Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules.
- Under the Right to Information Act, 2005 each office has a Public Information Officer and requests must be answered within 30 days.
Worked example
A supplier's letter about a pending bill arrives. Stamp the date, enter it in the dak register, put it up to the Postmaster with a short note quoting the bill number and asking whether payment has been released. Once the order is written, prepare the fair copy, enter it in the dispatch register, despatch it and file a copy with the noting. The register entries and the noting are what prove the office acted, and when.
Traps
- Handling dak without a dated register entry.
- Sending a reply with no file copy kept.
- Missing the 30-day RTI deadline or answering an RTI request as ordinary correspondence.