PERFORMING AUDITORS - ASSESSING AND REPORTING THE PERFORMANCE OF NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICES - A 3-COUNTRY COMPARISON

This article reviews self-assessment and reporting strategies of natio nal audit offices in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia and deve lops a framework for the reporting of their performance. There is a co mmon emphasis in the audit office objectives on serving their primary client and on improving the performance of the public sector, but ther e are differences in emphasis regarding the clients being served. The differing approaches to assessing and reporting their own performance can in part be attributed to differences between their mandates, objec tives and identification of the clients being served. The audit office s have developed complementary internal quality assurance processes wh ich generate additional performance information and have been subject to external peer reviews which assess and report on their performance. A framework is developed which clarifies the relationship between aud it office objectives and the measures used. It involves a hierarchy of performance parameters, including effectiveness, efficiency and workl oad and gives priority to meeting the needs of the primary client. The study has revealed that significant progress is being made in particu lar areas of assessing and reporting audit office performance and this should encourage audit offices to share their experiences internation ally to enhance their accountability to their primary clients and comm unities they serve.