Performance Audits Focused on the Principle of Effectiveness: an Overview of Public Audit Agencies
Applied Finance and Accounting Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2018 ISSN 2374-2410 E-ISSN 2374-2429 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://afa.redfame.com Performance Audits Focused on the Principle of Effectiveness: An Overview of Public Audit Agencies Luiz G M Mury Correspondence: Luiz G M Mury, Post-doctorate in Economics at Federal University of RS, Porto Alegre, Brazil; Public auditor at RS State Court of Accounts, Brazil. Received: July 1, 2018 Accepted: July 24, 2018 Available online: July 27, 2018 doi:10.11114/afa.v4i2.3488 URL: https://doi.org/10.11114/afa.v4i2.3488 Abstract According to international standards, performance audit is an independent and objective process for reviewing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of a government‟s program, organization, and/or activity in order to evaluate public management‟s performance. The relevance of the matter prompted the present study, which aims to inquire if, when conducting performance audits, Supreme Audit Institutions analyze a procedure‟s effectiveness, that is to say, the impact that determined government spending had on the program‟s target population. In order to do so, a questionnaire was applied to auditors of Public Audit Institutions from several countries. As a preliminary result, our research concluded that the majority of auditors conduct economy, efficiency and efficacy analyses, but rarely assess the effectiveness of government spending. Keywords: performance audit, court of auditors, effectiveness 1. Introduction Until early 1970‟s, the majority of Supreme Audit Institutions [SAI] had as their primary goal a formal nature of control focused on the validation of evenness of government spending execution, the legal compliance of administrative acts, and the consistency of financial demonstratives.
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