1. 20 October 2015
Compliance audit
Reporting

2. SAIs: common objectives and varied tools
Compliance (legality and regularity) audit – conducted by most SAIs
Depends on the mandate of the SAI
Some have judicial powers
Direct reporting – most SAIs
Some provide opinions/ conclusions
Supported by long reports

3. SAIs producing an Opinion / Conclusion
Office of the Auditor-General - Namibia
National Audit Office - UK
National Audit Office - Estonia
Auditor General of South Africa
European Court of Auditors

5. Department for Work and Pensions Accounts The Comptroller and Auditor General’s audit opinion
12 In respect of the financial statements of the Department for Work and Pensions, I have therefore qualified my opinion on regularity due to the material level of fraud and error in benefit expenditure, other than State Pension where the level of fraud and error is significantly lower. For State Pension, the Department estimates that fraud and error in resulted in gross overpayments of £0.13 billion ( – £0.11 billion), which is 0.2 per cent of related expenditure ( – 0.1 per cent), and gross underpayments of £0.15 billion ( – £0.12 billion), which is 0.2 per cent of related expenditure ( – 0.1 per cent).

6. Accuracy of Annual Report 2013 and regularity of transactions of the state Report of the National Audit Office to the Riigikogu,, Tallinn, 12 August 2014

7. ECA - Statement of Assurance 2013
Legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts Basis for adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts All policy groups covering operational expenditure are materially affected by error. The Court’s estimate for the most likely error rate for expensed payments underlying the accounts is 4,7 %. The supervisory and control systems examined were partially effective in ensuring the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts. Adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts In the Court’s opinion, because of the significance of the matters described in the basis for adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts paragraph, the payments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2013 are materially affected by error.

8. SAIs having a Court of Accounts structure
The Federal Court of Accounts of Brazil
The Court of Auditors – Spain
Court of Auditors – Portugal
Court of Accounts - Italy
Court of Accounts - Tunisia

9. ECA Reporting process

10. Types of reports published by ECA

11. Users of the ECA’s reports

12. Challenges Keeping it interesting !
Requirements from stakeholders for more and relevant information

13. The Opinion Standard wording
A code not easily understood by all stakeholders
Not providing enough information
Financial audit: New structure and new elements required from 2016

14. Long form reports - challenges
Identifying and matching stakeholders’ expectations
Including more visual elements
Improving the understandability
Analysing the causes for the errors found during the audit

16. ECA 2013 Annual Report
Financial corrections for agriculture and cohesion reported by the Commission in the years 2007 to 2013 by period
2013 total general government expenditure of the European Union Member States and EU spending in 2013 (million EUR)
The Court’s estimate of the most likely error ( )
Evolution of accumulated outstanding commitments for cohesion

17. EU audit in brief

18. EU audit in brief

19. Reduce complexity Complexity risk Improve systems Systems risk
The relationship between transaction type, risk, and estimated level of error in EU transactions (2013)
Reduce complexity
Member States run reimbursement projects
Complexity risk
European Commission run reimbursement projects
Rural development area related entitlements
Grants to research and education
Area related payments
Improve systems
Administrative costs
Grants to third countries
Systems risk