Executive coercion and state audit: A processual analysis of the responses of the Australian audit office to the dilemmas of efficiency auditing1978‐84

Abstract

The introduction of efficiency auditing in Australian Commonwealth state audit created a level of stress and threat for the Auditor‐General never previously encountered. Using insights from processual analysis as developed by Turner to demonstrate the pressures on state audit, the paper focuses on the principal events constituting the short life of the new Efficiency Audit Division (1978‐84) which had been established within the Australian Audit Office to develop efficiency auditing methods and to carry out efficiency audits. It documents for the first time a level of executive intrusion in state audit which contradicts the image promoted in Westminster democracies of a robustly independent state auditor and highlights the political nature of state audit.

Struggling for supremacy: the case of UK public audit institutions

“…On the issue of the motivation of the Executive, it is useful to draw on studies of conflict between the Executive and public auditors in other countries-for example, English and Guthrie (2000), Funnell (1998) and Jacobs (1998). Jacobs described how the New Zealand Treasury was opposed to the Auditor General's VFM role.…”

“…Funnell (1998Funnell ( , 2002 and Jacobs (1998) give fascinating examples of attempts by the Executive to resist performance auditing in Australia and New Zealand respectively. Others, such as Pollitt et al (1999), Laughlin (1997, 2002) and Roberts and Pollitt (1994), have discussed the NAO's self-imposed limits on its ability to conduct evaluations of government programmes (constraints that are more stringent than those that have been imposed by statute).…”

Enduring fundamentals: constitutional accountability and auditors-general in the reluctant state

“…Thus, consistent with government determination to reform the entire public sector as part of the National Competition Policy 6 so that the advantages which the private sector is perceived to enjoy are also those available to the public sector, auditors have also undergone varying degrees of transformation to ensure that their remit is consistent with, and supportive of, the new public management. The expansion of performance auditing from the mid1970s was a direct response to public sector management reforms (Funnell, 1998;Guthrie & Parker, 1999). However, throughout this process of audit reform, auditorsgeneral have sought to ensure that change has not been at the expense of the enduring constitutional accountability concerns of parliament and the public.…”

“…The acrimonious clashes in the closing decades of the 20th century between auditors-general, notably the Commonwealth Auditor-General John Taylor (see Funnell, 1996Funnell, , 1998Guthrie & Parker, 1999) and the Victorian Auditor-General Ches Baragwanath, and reformist governments which have been intent on reducing the authority and operational capabilities of the auditor-general are perhaps extreme but they do provide telling evidence of the treatment which independent officers can expect under the neo-liberal hegemony when they are determined to fulfil the public interest intent of their office (see Funnell, 1997Funnell, , 1999. Attacks on the ability of auditors-general to meet the demands of a rapidly changing public sector not only brought into question the competences of public auditors and their preparedness to contribute to reform but also provided the opportunity for interested parties on more than one occasion to promote a far greater involvement for private sector audit firms in public audit.…”

Näkökulmia tilintarkastukseen ja arviointiin

“…Tärkeistä tehtävistä huolimatta vaikuttavuustarkastuksia tehdään kansainvälisesti ja kansallisesti yllättävän vähän verrattuna tilintarkastuksien ja laillisuustarkastuksien määrään (ks. Funnell 1998;Jacobs 1998;Radcliff 1998;Guthrie & Parker 1999;Pollitt 2003;Lonsdale 2008;Skaerbak 2009;Grönlund, Svärdsten & Öhman 2011). Vaikuttavuustarkastuksien vähäinen lukumäärä vaikuttaa sekä julkisen sektorin läpinäkyvyyteen että vaikuttavuuden kehittämiskykyyn.…”