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Presentation by Gyula Pulay, Strategic Director of the State Audit Office of Hungary, at the 5th Meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group on Key National Indicators. Discusses opportunities for using KNIs in international comparisons and possible SAI functions related to KNIs.
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Presentation of Gyula Pulay, strategic director of the State Audit Office of Hungary 5th Meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group on Key National Indicators Riga, April 3 – 4, 2012 Analysis of opportunities on the use of KNI for international comparisons in the context of sustainable development
Possible SAI functions in relation to the KNIs • Expansion of audits on socio-economic sustainability • Better substantiation of (performance) audits with KNIs • Assistance with the development of KNIs
Sustainability indicators of the Eurostat • They serve an EU-wide strategy aimed at the quality of life and the sustainability • Eurostat has reported of the sustainability indicators (SIs) every second year since 2005 • 11 headline indicators grouped under 10 themes in 2011 • 100+ further indicators specifying the headline indicators
Hungarian sustainability indicators • Published by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) basically according to the Eurostat pattern • Latest version was issued in April 2011 • Three-level structure with 9 headline indicators and altogether 149 indicators • Time series for 1995-2009 with occasional reference to EU data
Comparison of the HCSO and the Eurostat headline indicators 1.
SAI’s relation to sustainability Two points of interest: • National-level audit of sustainable development • Better substantiation of the usual performance audits by means of SIs More and more SAIs’ mandate covers one or both of the above functions The suitability (measurability, analytical soundness, relevance) of the indicators should also be audited The program-level auditing may be an alternative to the national level auditing of sustainable development
Sustainability convergence analysis National progress and the international (EU) comparison of indicators are equally important Examples of lags where convergence is needed to speed up in case of Hungary: • employment rate • R+D expenditures/GDP • participation in life-long learning • life expectancy at birth • dependence on energy imports and energy consumption of transport/GDP
Better substantiation of audits with SIs The Hungarian SAO has applied/plans to apply SIs as an experiment in case of three audits: • the evaluation of subsidies funded from national and EU sources, facilitating the creation and preservation of jobs (concluded) • the audit on the public employment and training programs(in progress) • the audit on national parks (planned)
Forms of cooperation between the auditors and the SI analyst • The analyst is involved in the elaboration of the audit program • The analyst informs those involved in the audit about the international and national experience concerning the topic • Consultation about the problems, which may arise in the course of the audit • The analyst is involved in the evaluation of results gained due to the application of sustainability indicators
Experiences and Conclusions of the concluded experimental audit • Applicable HCSO indicators have been in abundance available (9 in the case) • The indicators are sufficiently detailed in order to bridge the macro-level indicator – program-level audit problem • Another methodological problem is that several factors are reflected within one indicator • General expectation from such an audit is to evaluate the subjective and objective failure-factors of a program
International Outlook 1. Two questions and seven country-responses • Does your SAI participate in the elaboration or development of the national indicator system of sustainable development (and if it does, please indicate, how) ? • Has your SAI already tried to utilize these indicators during SAI audits, especially performance audits (if yes, please indicate how and in which topics) ?
