Communication as a Transparency and Accountability Strategy in Supreme Audit Institutions

This article analyses survey data regarding the impact of supreme audit institutions’ (SAIs) performance audit on public administration in four Nordic countries. Regression analysis with pooled data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden indicates that performance audits have positive impacts on usefulness, changes, improvements and, to some extent, accountability, as perceived by auditees who have experienced the audits. The results show that some of the factors that earlier research found important for the impact of performance audits in some countries were insignificant for all the four Nordic countries, but that SAIs’ legitimacy, audit quality and consequences of media attention were important factors.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Supreme audit institutions in a high‐impact context: A comparative analysis of performance audit in four Nordic countries

Johnsen¹,

Reichborn-Kjennerud²,

Carrington

et al. 2019

“…Organisation of the audit, for example, conforming to a managerialist model (Tillema & ter Bogt, ), the communication and dissemination of the audit information (González‐Díaz, García‐Fernández, & López‐Díaz, ), or having politicians as lay‐auditors (Thomasson, ), may influence whether the audit information is used and its relevance and independence. There is obviously big variation in the organisation of the audit between many countries and across tiers of government (Pierre & Licht, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Public sector audit in contemporary society: A short review and introduction

Johnsen

2019

This article gives a short review of recent research on public sector audit, and then introduces six articles in a special issue on public sector audit in contemporary society. Many countries have developed their audit institutions and expanded the audit activities in particular since the 1980s. New public management and the theory of the ‘audit society’ explain much of this development well, also in some international organizations, but some countries have also experienced a contraction in the audit activities in the public sector. Moreover, literature on public sector audit outside the Anglo‐American and North European contexts, and especially from Africa, Asia and Latin‐America, is limited. There are big variations in how audit institutions are organized, in what they produce, in their relations to stakeholders and media, and in their impacts on organizations and society. Overall, auditors are little active in the fight against corruption, and the Napoleonic court system for organizing supreme audit institutions seems to be little effective. The audit institutions in the Anglo‐American and Nordic accountability regimes seem to be relatively effective, but the recent research show that auditors' independence and relevance are persistent challenging issues in public sector audit.

“…The relationship between audit offices and ombudsmen on the one hand, and the effect of the media coverage of the audit's or investigation's outcomes on the other hand, seems important as well, if only intuitively. It has however received surprisingly little attention in the literature (Bringselius, ; González‐Diaz, García‐Fernandez, & López‐Díaz, ; González et al., ). In theory, media exposure could increase the pressure on actors to implement the recommendations as put forward in the reports (Lonsdale, ).…”

Section: Literature On Influential Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of supreme audit institutions and ombudsmen in Belgium and The Netherlands

Acker

Bouckaert

2018

This article investigates the impact of the audit and ombud process on the implementation of recommendations made by supreme audit institutions and ombudsmen in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based on previous findings, the focus lies on influential internal and external factors in determining the effectiveness of the audit and ombud investigations. The article concludes that the impact of the process and factors often mentioned in the literature are less significant than found in other research. Political factors, such as coalition agreements and politicians trying to save face, seem to be much more influential in explaining the implementation rate.