PurposeThis paper aims to develop a classification scheme of different types of value for money (VFM) audits with different degrees of compliance audit, and to classify the performance audits carried out by the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO) during its first six years as an independent state audit organization reporting to parliament.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data were gathered from all of the 150 audit reports published by the SNAO from its establishment in 2003 to the end of 2008. Seminars were arranged to discuss the classifications for validation.FindingsThe focus on traditional VFM audits (the “Three Es”) is unusual. Most audits carried out by the SNAO combine different types of extended VFM audits with compliance audit. On the one hand, they audit how the government and/or central agencies fulfil their mandates (from good to bad). On the other, they audit how the government and/or central agencies adhere to legislation, rules and policies (right or wrong). In some cases, the SNAO equates compliance audit with performance audit.Practical implicationsThe authors have verbalised and visualised performance audit activities of interest not only to state auditors, but also to external stakeholders. One practical implication is that the Swedish national audit committee has conducted an evaluation of the SNAO that is partly based on the national report of this study, and has proposed a stronger focus on the Three Es.Originality/valueThe study addresses a new approach in terms of a classification scheme for performance audits, consisting of eight types of VFM audits and three degrees of compliance audit, and creating 24 possible combinations.

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Studies of organizational performance have overwhelmingly relied on evidence gathered from private sector firms. Nevertheless, the past several years have witnessed increasing interest in enhancing effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector, in turn generating considerable investment in the deployment of performance metrics in such settings. Though extant evidence provides many perceptive insights into the specifics of performance frameworks in public sector organizations, little is known about the measurement of organizational performance in police work. Our investigation drew upon the deployment of the balanced scorecard in Swedish Law Enforcement, an organization that long ago implemented the new paradigm of policing, which consisted in enhancing the quality of urban life on the mere making of arrests. Results from this investigation concur with other studies indicating that public sector organizations tend to assume a stakeholder perspective on performance measurement. In particular, Swedish Law Enforcement developed a set of measures of external success and internal performance that addressed present, past, and future time dimensions. Implementation of the balanced scorecard in police work, though, raised some problems. Our study details concerns about the aggregation of non-financial performance measures. More importantly, some crucial areas in the new concept of policing (such as community policing) were neglected by the system. Conversely, the system focused on monitoring some easy-to-measure indicators that provided a traditional view of police work while some crucial areas of policing were not measured. This focus ultimately lessened the operational potential of the balanced scorecard system. Our study also puts forward some suggestions for future research in this area.

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