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Session Title: Today's Challenging Context for Supreme Audit Institutions: Case Examples From the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Norway
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Panel Session 881 to be held in Panzacola Section H1 on Saturday, Nov 14, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Presidential Strand
, the Government Evaluation TIG, and the International and Cross-cultural Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Valerie J Caracelli, United States Government Accountability Office, caracelliv@gao.gov
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| Discussant(s):
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| Rakesh Mohan, Idaho Legislature, rmohan@ope.idaho.gov
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| Abstract:
The presentations from leaders of Supreme Audit Institutions illustrate how oversight and accountability are taking on ever-increasing importance in a complex and troubled global environment. The first describes how the U.S.GAO is responding to recent legislation that has ramifications for workload, coordination, and turnaround times. The second paper describes the Canadian audit context in which GAO's sister organization carries out government-wide audits that measure and report on the program effectiveness but does not conduct evaluations. The third presentation describes the U.K. audit context; it traces methods and practices over 15 years and shows how changing contextual factors drive and limit choices. The last paper, on the Norwegian audit context, illustrates the importance and challenge of incorporating a citizen's perspective into performance audit work. The discussant, an experienced U.S. state auditor and past member of the Advisory Council on Government Auditing Standards, will draw from his experience and guide audience discussion.
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Building Evaluation Capacity to Respond to Oversight Needs: The United States Government Accountability Office
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| Nancy Kingsbury, United States Government Accountability Office, kingsburyn@gao.gov
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The Obama Administration has promised a renewed commitment to transparency and oversight. These goals are particularly relevant to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which provide federal funds to stabilize and stimulate the economy. These acts also assign the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) a challenging range of responsibilities to promote accountability and transparency, including recurring bimonthly reviews of selected states' and localities' uses of funds, and targeted studies in key areas. GAO has responded by assembling multidisciplinary teams with a wide range of skills, building appropriate in-house technical expertise through targeted new hires, and consulting outside experts. This presentation will discuss the challenges associated with creating the right mix of staff capacity, delivering fast turn-around products, and coordinating with other bodies that also have responsibilities for monitoring and overseeing the TARP and ARRA.
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Program Evaluation in the Canadian Federal Government Viewed From the Context of the Office of the Auditor General
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| Colin Meredith, Office of the Auditor General of Canada, colin.meredith@oag-bvg.gc.ca
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The legislative mandate of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada does not empower the Office to carry out evaluations of government programs. Instead, the Office has a mandate to examine and report on whether satisfactory procedures have been established by federal departments and agencies to measure and report the effectiveness of their programs. In the past, exercise of this mandate has most often taken the form of performance audits of government programs which included examination of the measurement and reporting of program results by responsible departments. The Office has also carried out government-wide audits of the function in 1978, 1983, 1986, 1993 and this year. The paper will review and discuss the role of the legislative audit office in the context of its mandate to audit but not conduct program evaluations, and in the context of an evolving central policy on the function.
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The Right Tools for the Job? Methods Choice and Context in the Performance Audit of the United Kingdom National Audit Office
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| Jeremy Lonsdale, National Audit Office United Kingdom, jeremy.lonsdale@nao.gsi.gov.uk
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This paper examines the selection of methods used in performance audits at the UK National Audit Office, which produces over 60 reports a year. It traces the development of research methods used over the last 15 years and examines how contextual factors, in particular, the accountability focus of the work, its use in formal scrutiny processes, the changing nature of government bodies, and changing staff mix, have shaped these choices. The paper also considers how contextual factors determine what kinds of evidence are deemed to be of particular merit by audit audiences (for example, independently generated quantitative data) and what methods and the evidence they yield are considered inappropriate or less valued. The paper will provide a detailed review of reports and interviews with practitioners about what has guided their choices. The paper will show how contextual factors - in particular, setting - both drive and limit the selection of methods.
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Improving Public Services Through a Citizen's Perspective: A Contextual Factor in Norway's Supreme Audit Institution
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| Kristin Amundsen, Office of the Auditor General of Norway, kristin.amundsen@riksrevisjonen.no
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In the last decade there has been increasing recognition that a citizen's perspective is an important contextual factor for Supreme Audit Institutions. This presentation provides examples from performance audits in Norway. The paper explores why this perspective has become important in performance audit practices. It will show that taking into account a citizen's perspective is useful when analyzing efficiency and effectiveness of public services and demands new methods for practice. It will address several issues related to citizen views and their importance in the development of performance audit work: (a) the kinds of methods that can be applied in measuring performance, (b) the relationship of the citizen's perspective to the effectiveness of public services, and (c) the manner in which a citizen's perspective contributes to better reporting to the Parliament and improving public services. Last, calling on examples from practice, the paper identifies some challenges in implementing a citizen's perspective.
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