Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1990 > Committee of Public Accounts > Special Report - Computer Security in Government Departments and Offices

APPENDIX C

Survey Constraints

Main difficulties associated with the responses to the questionnaire were:-

■Variation in the Nature and Scale of Activities - the significance of computer operations and the importance of computer security vary greatly among respondents from those with little more than word processing facilities to some of the largest computer installations in the country handling expenditure/revenue in excess of IR£1 billion each year.

■Multiple Replies from several respondents - for respondents with more than one computer operation some returned a completed questionnaire for each operation whereas others submitted a composite reply.

■Variation in supporting detail provided by respondents - some respondents provided detailed notes and other information to support their answers which facilitated a more reliable evaluation whereas others provided no supporting information whatsoever.

■Conflicting Answers - analysis of certain responses revealed apparent contradictions and inconsistencies between answers to different questions. It was not possible to resolve these within the scope of this review.

■Inaccurate Answers - in a small number of cases, it appears that respondents may have inadvertently recorded inaccurate answers probably due to inexperience or misinterpretation of the questions.

■Incomplete Answers - there were a small number of cases where respondents failed to answer all questions.