Government Performance Auditing

Government Performance Auditing

Government performance auditing focuses on improving how governments provide programs and services. While there is no one universally agreed upon definition, there are key definitions which capture the scope of government performance auditing. According to Government Auditing Standards, "Performance audits are defined as audits that provide findings or conclusions based on an evaluation of sufficient, appropriate evidence against criteria." Additionally, the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions defines performance auditing as "an independent examination of the efficiency and effectiveness of government undertakings, programs or organizations, with due regard to economy, and the aim of leading to improvements.

Government performance auditing was developed in the late 1960s and shepherded by the United States Government Accountability Office, (the chief audit arm of the US federal government). Government performance auditing has since spread to most state governments and many closely managed local governments. Internationally, government performance auditing has flourished under the leardership of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

Other municipalities like Austin, Atlanta, Seattle, San Diego, Portland, San Jose and others have an Office of the City Auditor within their structure. The goal of the office is to ensure government accountability and to improve economy, effectiveness and efficiency of government operations. The independence is achieved by the reporting structure where the City Auditor is reporting directly to elected council members and not City management. The examples of the work done would be: benchmarking to the other cities with the similar programs, comparing to the best practices entities or guidelines, assessing performance measures of the unit within the entity, checking the reliability of the IT systems of the municipalities, assessing the economic impact of programs or events, etc.

In Canada the Auditor General of Canada has strongly advocated a similar approach to improve government at all levels. This complements other efforts in that country such as the FCM InfraGuide for best practice exchange of all routine municipal infrastructure management problems.