Citizens as part of audits Young EUROSAI Conference Presentation

2 Agenda 1.Why are Supreme Audit Institutions important for the citizens? 2.Why are the citizens important for Supreme Audit Institutions? 3.How can citizens become part of the audit evidence? 4.An example of using citizens as part of an experiment

Why are Supreme Audit Institutions important for the citizens? - The danger Old days 3 Few sources of information A sense of knowledge accumulation Civic action – claims of accountability Vast array of information sources Information overload (what is to be believed?) Civic inaction Modern days

Why are Supreme Audit Institutions important for the citizens? - Our contribution 4 Vast array of information sources Information overload (what is to be believed?) Civic inaction Authoritative source of information Reliable knowledge, added transparency Claims of accountability

Why are the citizens important for the Supreme Audit Institutions? 5 Implementation by public agency User experiences InputActivitiesOutputOutcomeEffectEffect Decision in parliament

How can citizens become part of the audit evidence? 6 MethodBrief descriptionExample Effect studiesComparing effect on treatment group with placebo group Report on the effect and quality of the employment efforts implemented by external actors Questionnaires, interviews or focus groups Structured process of gathering information from (fx) citizens on their experiences Level of satisfaction by users of certain public institution/activity Case file reviewStructured review of the case file of citizens who are the target group of a public program Report on the integration effort – compliance analysis of municipal integration efforts ExperimentsExperiment persons asked to acted in a constructed scenario British study of how easily citizens could find important public information online Vignette studiesConstruct fictive case files to study how public personel would act towards citizens Norwegian study of whether doctors will permit unemployed sick leave from job training activities in similar cases Observation studiesObserve how citizens are affected by public policies or activities Norwegian study of the access barriers people with vision disabilities experience when using public transport

An example of using citizens as part of an experiment 7 Let’s look into benefit fraud and error Fraud Claimant error Official error Does the ministry have a strategy for minimizing fraud and error? Have the ministry launched initiatives to minimize fraud and error?

An example of using citizens as part of an experiment 8 Let’s look into benefit fraud and error Fraud Claimant error Official error Can bad and/or difficult language in application forms lead to incorrect payments of social benefits?

An example of using citizens as part of a controlled experiment - The method 9 16 individuals chosen Fill out social benefit application Application and transcription analysis Interview session Consequence for amount of social benefit payment

Thank you for the attention 10 To sum up: 1.Supreme Audit Institutions can have an important impact in enabling citizens to hold public institutions accountable 2.Including citizens as part of our audit evidence has the benefit of directing our gaze towards the effects of public policies 3.We have a vast tool box ready to be applied with imagination and creaticity  The world is composed of people – let’s make use of this fact!