Q: Are the powers that be aware that it is wrong, or is manipulated?
(Perhaps some of both?)
I have no professional data experience. I constantly remind myself to use the word"data" as a plural .
Oh NO another LONGG answer from the Old Fart.....
My guess, and it's purely a guess, based upon experience, and little birdies speaking every so often, is that top up management (region, national) knows it's far from perfect but says it's "directionally correct" which means if you examine each piece, it may be incorrect, but what in total what the message says that the conclusions drawn from the data are right ones. (We know the individual incidents of backing may be wrong, but what we do know is backing up is being done and it's dangerous)
The outright fallacy of this is that when you put garbage in you get garbage out. In other words, if your foundation data isn't accurate, every conclusion from that data is inaccurate. Like a home foundation, if it's flawed, the rest of the structure won't have integrity.
Data can be manipulated by inputting information the person doing the input KNOWS is incorrect, but they are required to enter numbers to meet a requirement, or justify their job. (If a supervisor doesn't have time to do a field observation, they create such and enter the data which is all made up)
District and local management has to abide by whatever the numbers say, because that's what their boss is using to harass them. Nobody dares, during telecon, to say the data isn't right. The answer is usually "I'll take corrective action" and that gets the MPOO to move on to the next criminal. They may know it's not accurate, but their boss, and their peers, are abiding by it, so they have to as well. They work around it the best they can.
You EAS lurkers on here, you know there are what, 19 or so different programs where data is entered into each one separately, so numbers are generated from each program. The solution, though a very costly one, is to have ONE DATABASE and write every program to draw figures from that database. This would be a massive undertaking, because all new programs would need to be written, and the database populated and established. Massive job just to train tens of thousands of managers. The cost, the size, the scope has deterred the Post Office from trying to move ahead with this plan. So we limp along best we can, and with the culture of "you're doing something wrong, and my data supports that" continues. (A fairly recent shift for rural pay was made as compensation is now in TACS, but not IRMS, where clock rings and city pay is recorded)
The Post Office is reactive, so the purpose of data at the District or local level is to point out broken rules or bad behavior. If they had very accurate data, they'd use it for the same purpose, so why invest in getting the real numbers?