Credibility of Governments, Role of SAIs and International Good Practices on Financial Audit

Abstract

The Federal Court of Accounts – Brazil (TCU) has the mission of overseeing public administration improving it in the benefit of society. Therefore, the challenges faced by TCU vary as public management economic, political and administrative scenarios evolve. In the present state of fiscal and global crises, TCU has an important institutional role, which is to build trust in society. In line with the strategic vision of being known as an institution of excellence in oversight and that contributes to the improvement of public administration, the Court attempts to converge its financial audit practices to the international standards and good practices. This paper presents some of the results of this convergence process, particularly the findings obtained through a survey on good practices in Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of developed countries. The survey is structured in four main dimensions: i) mandate and objectives; ii) resources and organization; iii) methods and procedures; and, iv) reports and impacts. The main conclusions were: i) financial audit is part of the mandate of all the SAIs surveyed; ii) there are structures and specialized professionals for this audit tool; iii) there is great concern in ensuring that international standards are being applied, by means of |IT solutions that are leaders in the market and by the SAIs submitting themselves to periodic peer reviews; and iv) the main benefits of this type of audit are the strengthening of accountability, transparency, integrity, internal controls and public sector governance.