The Internal Quality Control System at the Office of the Auditor General of Norway

1. The Internal Quality Control System at the Office of the Auditor General of Norway Deputy Director General Øivind Berg Larsen The Office of the Auditor General of Norway

2. Internal Quality Control • Why • How • Lessons learned

3. The Board of Auditors general Auditor General Secretary General Legal secretariat Department I (Financial audit) Ministries of: Finance, Government Administration and Reform, Culture and Church Affairs Department II (Financial audit) Ministries of: Defence Fisheries and Coastal Affaires, Agriculture and Food, Environment, Petroleum and Energy, Transport and Communication Department III (Financial audit) Ministries of: Justice and the Police, Education and Research Local Government and Regional Development, Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs Department IV (Financial audit) Methodology Ministries of: Labour and Social Inclusion, Children and Equality, Health and Care Services Performance Audit Dep II Ministries of: Finance, Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Defence, Culture and Church Affaires, Education and Research, Agriculture and Food, Environment, Petroleum and Energy, Transport and Communications, Foreign Affairs Performance Audit Dep I Methodology development and advice, Government-wide policies Corporate control Ministries of: Labour and Social Inclusion, Government Administration and Reform, Health and care Services, Local Government and Regional Development, Trade and Industry Administration Responsibility: ICT, Internal administration and finance, Information and documentation, International cooperation, Personnel

4. Different control regimes for • Financial audits (since 2000) • Performance audits (once only) • Corporate control (once only)

5. The Objectives of Internal Quality Control • High quality audits • Consistent use of standards • Effective use of resources • Provide an arena for learning • For those being subject to control • For those performing the control

6. Common to all Quality Control at the OAG • QC is not part of day to day Quality Assurance • QC is performed after an audit opinion has been formed and sent to the audited body or Parliament • QC is performed by personnel from a different department to the one being controlled • All sections are subject to QC approximately once every four years • The report from the QC team is sent for comments to the section being scrutinised • The report is reviewed by the Top Management Team and is referred to the Board of Auditors General

7. The Quality Control process will verify that • Quality assurance is performed and documented • Personnel are allocated to the assignments in an effective way and according to the priority of the audit • Communication between the audited body and the audit team has been timely and correct • All findings and conclusions are documented and can be reproduced for verification purposes

8. Specific for QC in Financial Audits • The Audit program follows logically from the Strategic Analysis • That the Audit Program has been performed and documented as planned Conclusions of the QC: • Acceptable • Lacking in part • Mismatch between findings and conclusions

9. Main findings – Financial audit of 2006 • Use of new methodology is acceptable • In some controlled audits it is difficult to trace the flow of logic from material risks defined to the audit report • The use of the support tool (Prosit) varies • Internal quality assurance are not always adequately documented

10. Specific for QC in Performance Audits Checklists /structured interviews on • Design • Processes • Products • Communications Findings: All acceptable, but with room for improvements in Communications

11. ???