Three desks read one file, and the committee receives three different answers to the same ratio.
Each one computed correctly, from a different definition, by someone who had no reason to think there was another.
On a branch network, variation is not the exception. It is the distribution.
The reading a file receives depends on who picked it up, what else was on their desk that week, and whether anyone senior was free that afternoon. When the answer is nobody, the branch telephones head office, or it does not, and the paper still arrives at committee looking settled.
One standard, three desks
That is why a marine salvage contractor, one example among many, gets a real reading rather than a generic one. What reaches your committee is a number that comes with the basis it was computed on, instead of three of them.
When an officer moves banks
The reasoning does not move with them.