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The report gathers views from public auditor generals, academics and policy advisers from Bhutan to Scotland. They offer reflections about the role of public audit in delivering accountability and improving public services, especially at a time when the private sector is increasingly involved in providing public services.
While emphases differ in the countries represented in the report, there is a shared view that public audit is a vital check on public spending. This is reflected in the report’s foreword by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the influential UK Public Accounts Committee, who urges that public audit, and the work of the UK’s Public Accounts Committee, needs to provide effective oversight of the way government spends taxpayers’ money.
Ms Hodge says: 'Audit has to move forward, to test its efficiency and effectiveness in how money is raised, as well as how is it spent. Implementation of major projects, particularly in IT and defence, is typically disastrous. Both result in the waste of millions, if not billions, of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Yet the Public Accounts Committee encounters the same failures time and time again.
'The role of the civil service has transformed over the last few decades, towards a much greater focus on delivery and away from policy advice and administration. In part, this is a result of the decision by recent governments to contract out more and more of our public services to the private sector.'