The extent to which the Office has successfully established itself as a centre of expertise is reflected in the fact that managers mention the Office in managers’ meetings, even when no Office members are physically present. In meetings, enrolled public servants argue for the Office in absentia through remarks such as “The Auditor General might not like that.” The Office intervenes from a distance in departments’ activities and its views and claims of expertise are now reported as self-evident and matters of fact. Indeed managers in our more recent interviews refer, unprompted, to the Office when being asked to comment on the performance measurement project; highlighting for example that measures need to be “auditable” and “defensible to an auditor” (Division manager, April 2000). Increasing numbers of Albertan managers have integrated an auditing vocabulary into their interpretive schemes – thereby securing more firmly the Office’s role in the performance measurement domain. However, this does not necessarily reflect an uncritical acceptance of the new régime: “As a result of the business plan model, the accountants have proliferated like rabbits. Auditors are all over the place.” (Site manager, September 2000).