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Supreme audit institutions, such as the auditors‐general, are considered a crucial link in the accountability chain between parliament and the executive arm of government. The purpose of this study is to examine the enabling legislation of the supreme audit institutions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries from a public sector accountability and independence perspective. Following on from INTOSAI (1998), English and Guthrie (2000) and De Martinis and Clark (2001), this study uses an accountability and independence framework to identify and compare the current legislation applicable to the supreme audit institutions of the ASEAN member countries with regard to independence, autonomy, mandate, funding issues, and related parliamentary powers. This study finds that while on average each jurisdiction has addressed slightly less than half the total number of issues under examination, there is considerable diversity with regard to the particular issues addressed. The study suggests policy implications to further strengthen the provisions for accountability and independence of supreme audit institutions through amendments to the enabling legislation of the various jurisdictions.

The state audit is crucial for society in ensuring the transparent and legal spending of public funds. In the Republic of North Macedonia, although state audit-related activities have existed since the state's independence, the State Audit Office started operating as a Supreme Audit Institution in 1999. The purpose of this research was to explore the development of the State Audit Office in the Republic of North Macedonia over the past two decades regarding the organisational aspect and the state audit-related activities.

The research is based on a detailed analysis performed using statistical tests of data collected from the State Audit Office's annual reports on operation and performed audits in the period 2001–2020, concerning the budget, organisational size, audit engagements, audited public revenues and expenditures, audit reports, and given recommendations and their implementation. The survey method was used to determine other factors that could have a correlation with the development of the State Audit Office.

In general, it can be concluded that the State Audit Office has grown in terms of financial resources at its disposal and the organisational size (number of employees). Although there is no correlation between the regularity audit engagements and the audited public revenues and expenditures, there is still a positive correlation between the audited public revenues and expenditures. The implementation of the given recommendations by the auditors is not related to the number of recommendations in the final audit reports. There are several internal, external and international factors that have a positive correlation with the development of the State Audit Office.

The first limitation of this paper pertains to the period of existence of the Supreme Audit Institution in the Republic of North Macedonia not being very long in order to be able to draw more significant conclusions. The second limitation concerns the measurement of the variables from the survey being based only on the perception of the state auditors. Such a measurement method might be considered less accurate in describing the actual situation.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the only one that explores the development of the Supreme Audit Institution in the Republic of North Macedonia. Furthermore, it provides a good basis for further detailed research on areas relevant to the issue. We believe that this research will enrich the existing body of literature on state audit by offering a concrete example of the development of a Supreme Audit Institution in a less-researched geographical area.

This paper seeks to investigate the work performed by French Cour des comptes magistrates as part of performance audits. The research objective is to understand who the magistrates are, what they do, how they do what they do, how they perceive their role, what authority they feel they can claim, and how, through performance audits, they try to influence the way the organisations they visit are run.

In addition to 35 interviews conducted with Court magistrates (based on a semi-structured interview questionnaire) and non-participant observation, public documentation was analysed. To understand how magistrates perform their tasks at the Court, basic theories on influence processes and theories on decision making developed by Herbert A. Simon were applied.

After exploring the universe in which magistrates of the French Cour des comptes operate, it appears that their undertaking of performance audits has engendered a host of competing visions: the transition to modernity has to occur. The Court presents itself officially as a supreme audit institution but it acts as a grand corps de l ' État (senior branch of the Civil Service). Magistrates come to the Court of their own accord and make every effort to avoid being viewed as control professionals. The Court openly positions itself as a “judge of management”, wishing to impose its jurisdictional authority on activities that are essentially professional in character. A migration from traditional roles is observed: the role of the Court as a critic of the Administration has been sidelined. In addition, the magistrates claim to be judges when they are in the ambit of the Court, but shed this role for that of “catalysts of change” when they interact with representatives of the organisations audited.

The research is based on a detailed analysis of a specific context. This may limit the wider applicability of the findings. However, the data gathered from the French experience could be useful for other supreme audit institutions (SAIs) whose status is equivalent to that of the Court, or whose mandate has expanded in the past decade.

This study lifts the veil on the performance audit practice at one of the numerous supreme audit institutions. In addition, the French context has received scant attention from researchers.

The aim of this paper is to compare the audit and accountability arrangements of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) internationally.

Building on a theorisation of regulatory space, extended by new audit spaces of public audit, the scope of the research is the 196 SAIs that are full members of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). The study is based on documentation review, workshops with a steering panel, a survey of all SAIs (response rate of 64%, being 125 of 196 members), workshops with the seven regions of INTOSAI and discussion at Congress.

The paper suggests that the audit and accountability arrangements for SAIs is underpinned by INTOSAI's global voice, a country's regulatory space and a SAIs organization, capacity and scope that are themes used to structure the comparison. The results show there is diversity in the organization, capacities and scope of SAIs, but also an opportunity for recognising the positive potential of INTOSAI in fulfilling its global voice leveraged from the results of its work with its regions and members.

This is the most comprehensive research study of SAIs and the research underpinning this study enables SAIs to compare themselves regionally and internationally.

On the one hand, the auditing of the public hospitals regarding their financial information is carried out by the State Audit Court which is the Supreme Auditing Institution in our country, on the other hand it is carried out by the auditors of the Ministry of Health. While the audits made by the Ministry of Health are generally about compatibility and medical controls, the financial information of the hospitals needs to be made by the external independent auditors and their impact on the general budget needs to be determined.

In this study, the subject matter of financial auditing has been elaborated on within the specificity of the public health sector and evaluated as to whether the conducted auditing is effective in determining the mistakes in the financial information of the organizations. For the purpose of conducting the evaluation, the six-year auditing reports between the years of 2012 and 2017 of the Supreme Auditing Institution (State Audit Court) conducting the financial auditing of the public health sector regarding the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey (Türkiye Kamu Hastaneleri Kurumu). The auditing reports are addressed within the framework of the types and numbers of findings determined by the State Audit Court, the responses that the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey has given against those findings and the opinion of auditing. In the consequence of the conducted evaluation, it was concluded that the Court of Accounts was effective in determining the mistakes in the financial reports and increasing the correctness and reliability of the financial information of the Administration.

New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector auditors and audit institutions have been largely unconnected, with the exception of the critical examination of performance audits. We investigate the question of how public sector auditors’ roles and activities have changed as a result of NPM and later reforms.

We examine and synthesise public sector audit research examining reforms since the year 2000. The research presented considers changes to external and internal public sector audits as well as the development of public sector audit institutions – known as supreme audit institutions (SAIs).

Considerable changes have occurred. Many were influenced by NPM, but others have evolved from the eco-system of accounting, auditing and public sector management. External auditors have responded to an increase in demand for accountability. Additional management and governance techniques have been introduced from the private sector, such as internal auditing and audit committees. NPM has also led to conflicting trends, particularly when governments introduced competition to public sector auditing by contracting out but then chose to centralise to improve accountability. There is also greater international influence now through bodies like the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and similar regional bodies.

NPM reforms and the eco-system have impacted public sector auditing. Sustainability reporting is emerging as an area requiring more auditing attention; auditors also need to continue to develop better ways to communicate with citizens. Further, research into auditing in non-Western nations and emerging technologies is also required, especially where it provides learnings around more valuable audit practices. Empirical evidence is required of the strengths and weaknesses of SAIs’ structural variety.

This chapter explores the relationship between bureaucracy and the ­democratization of the Republic of Korea by analyzing the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI) and how Korea’s unique type of supreme audit institution (SAI) have been involved throughout the democratization process of Korea over the last two decades. Unlike western supreme audit institutions which mainly functioned for financial and performance auditing, Korea’s SAI, BAI bureaucracy, has functioned to reduce corruption, in cooperation with citizen’s participation which gives unique cases for the context of developing countries. The most important finding of this study is that bureaucracy can be an effective vehicle in a country’s political trajectory towards democratization given that the public institutions and agencies have specific traits such as having clear and comprehensive mandates, retaining high ­sensitivity to external needs, and maintaining well-qualified staff with active utilization of Information Technology. The main targets of the analysis are the conditions under which BAI bureaucracy could effectively exert its mandates and successfully fulfill its duties; also the question of how the BAI bureaucracy has facilitated democratization as being the locus of participatory democracy will be addressed.

To discuss the theoretical framework for involvement of supreme audit institutions (SAIs) in anti‐corruption struggle and their contributions in practice.

The paper presents a theoretical and practical discussion on both direct and indirect contributions of SAIs in fighting with corruption. To this end, it covers a comprehensive analysis of SAIs in terms of separation of power, audit evidence, transparency, investigative power and accountability. Hence, cornerstone documents concerning the subject matter of the paper have been scrutinized so as to evaluate the role of SAIs in detail.

Active participation of SAIs which have financial, organizational, operational and functional independence and audit mandate guaranteed by constitutions and laws is essential in order for deterring corruption by promoting accountability, openness and good governance public‐financial management. Furthermore, it is likely that SAIs detect some suspicious cases of corruption even though most of them have no power to investigate those cases.

The paper points out that SAIs to some extend may take part in the fight with corruption directly by detecting it beside its conventional role of deterring and preventing.

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) examine and supervise the activity of public institutions. The study aims at contributing to the existing literature on public sector audit by providing a classification of 29 European SAIs – 28 national SAIs and the European Court of Auditors (ECA) – based on a broad range of attributes varying from the SAIs' environment to its structure, activity, resources or transparency.

The authors apply quantitative methodology for clustering by means of multidimensional scaling and regressive ordinary least square (OLS) and logistic models.

The authors' results show that SAIs from veteran EU member states (MSs) are more similar amongst them and the same applies to SAIs from Nordic countries, Baltic countries, Western Mediterranean countries and Eastern countries. The authors also perform additional analysis focussing on currently relevant issues such as gender equality, age, environment or the sustainable development goals (SDGs), concluding that the younger the institutions' staff, the more transparent the institutions are. The authors also find that more transparent SAIs report on environmental audits, more prone to cover the SDGs in their audits.

The research is limited in purpose and scope because data cover only Europe. Given the limited number of observations (29), it does not have prospective purposes but only explanatory ones. The authors' findings are interesting for researchers because they offer original insights on public audit in Europe and cover matters of current interest such as environment, transparency or gender equality.

The research is also of interest for public auditors because it offers them information that may help them improve their activity and find institutional synergies, as the dataset is available to public auditors.

From a social view point, the paper shows that public auditors perform work on topics of interest for the citizens.

The dataset compiled for the research offers extensive data and a wide variety of attributes defining European SAIs and may offer future opportunities for research from different perspectives.