A committee has uncovered vulnerabilities that facilitated fraud at almost every stage of last year's local government civil service examination, it says.

This ranged from determining vacancies and drafting procurement terms to hiring contractors, marking papers, announcing results and appointing successful candidates.

The committee, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Pakorn Nilprapunt, submitted its findings to Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Aug 6, according to a source.

The report found the Central Committee for Local Government Competitive Examinations approved 8,545 vacancies, but authorities eventually appointed 15,520 people. It recommended investigating whether the additional appointments complied with the law.

It also identified weaknesses in the examination's terms of reference (TOR). The central committee required its contractor to assume almost full responsibility for administering the exam.

However, the probe committee said this did not relieve the central committee of its legal duty to supervise the process.

The contractor later subcontracted examination marking and created an additional copy of examination-result data, raising concerns about possible manipulation. The probe committee recommended determining whether the duplication was intentional.

The most serious finding involved discrepancies between original examination scores and the results eventually announced. Data obtained by a subcontractor immediately after the general knowledge test, or Part A, and the position-specific test, or Part B, did not match the published results.

Digital evidence and testimony showed officials were instructed or conspired to alter results on several occasions.

Some candidates who had initially failed were given passing scores, while additional points were awarded to those who had already passed. The changes affected candidates' rankings and their chances of being appointed.

The probe committee described the practice as a serious breach, saying allowing outsiders without official authority to alter examination results constituted clear irregularities and fraud.

It also criticised the central committee for failing to adequately verify results before certifying them, despite citing confidentiality rules. The probe committee said the central committee itself determined the classification of the information and remained responsible for the accuracy of the results.

Another major concern was that appointments continued even after authorities arrested members of the alleged fraud network. The process was suspended only later, which the fact-finding committee said exposed serious weaknesses in the Interior Ministry's chain of command and undermined public confidence.

The probe committee recommended civil, criminal, administrative and disciplinary action against those involved, saying the evidence pointed to an organised network. It also proposed reconsidering the central committee's role in future civil service examinations unless its structure and oversight mechanisms were improved.

The Department of Local Administration was instructed to reconstruct scores and successful-candidate lists using original OMR (Optical Mark Reading) data, identify candidates whose scores were unlawfully changed and revoke appointments or candidate listings involving ineligible people. Salaries and other compensation should also be recovered where there was no legal entitlement.

The probe committee proposed that the Office of the Civil Service Commission establish a database of people convicted of examination fraud. It also called for standard TORs covering IT security, data protection, access controls, audit logs and systems capable of detecting score changes.

The recommendations were approved by Mr Anutin on Tuesday, with Mr Pakorn ordered to oversee implementation and regularly report progress.

The findings came as criminal investigators transferred evidence to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

Crime Suppression Division investigators submitted more than 3,000 pages of documents to an NACC inquiry panel on Tuesday.