Capacity building on non-SAI stakeholder engagement
Background and objectives
Background
The Project Group will base its work on the latest work that has been conducted among SAIs on civil society. The first of the latest work is the INTOSAI capacity building committee’s Framework for SAIs: Engagement with Civil society, which is prepared with the intention for SAIs to use when considering taking a strategic decision on strengthening their engagement and cooperation with civil society with the aim of improving their audit impact. The Framework is an excellent basis that includes information that could be expanded upon to focus on the context of the EUROSAI region and its SAIs. The identified three types of engagement with civil society.
- One-way: Informing civil society;
- Two-way: consulting civil society;
- Collaborative relationships or partnerships with a common purpose.
The Framework also identified risk management as an important part of making a strategic decision on the engagement.
Another important product developed is the Guideline ‘On social utilization and transparency of public sector audits’ prepared with the EUROSAI Project group on social utilization. As part of the primary objective aims to map the possibilities of creating the prerequisites for measuring the utilisation of SAIs’ activities, and to enhance knowledge sharing among SAIs. Section 8 of the Guideline Assessment looks at: i) the relationship between SAIs and the citizens; ii) identification of initiatives to measure SAIs’ performance in relation to citizens; and iii) identification of performance indicators in relation to citizens.
In the years 2018 and 2019, the SAIs of Albania, Croatia, Ireland, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Switzerland and Romania contributed to the development of this. Based on the contributions of these 8 EUROSAI members an assessment of the relationship between SAIs and the citizens was made, whereas 6 of these SAIs prepared and shared their national case studies in the areas of social utilization in order to be able to create a guideline.
The third important element upon which the work of this Project Group will be elaborated is the Survey of the European Court of Auditors on citizen engagement of August 2021. The survey, made across the SAIs of the European Members States aimed at EU SAIs’ practices for consulting and engaging with citizens. A study paper is expected to be delivered by ECA based on the survey.
The PG will seize opportunities to monitor other relevant initiatives (surveys, webinars and tools etc.) taking place also outside EUROSAI / INTOSAI, e.g. those organized by the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation (CAAF) and other organizations. One of the most recent activities of the CAAF was a webinar taking place 25 January 2022 introducing the results of an international survey regarding the cooperation of audit offices and civil society organizations (CSOs). Among other aspects, the survey results show the challenges of the different level audit offices’ engagement with CSOs. The results of the CAAF activities are also interesting for the PG in that aspect that they refer to the experiences of not only the SAIs, but also provincial and municipal audit offices.
This EUROSAI Project Group sees the opportunity to expand of the above, to increase the inclusiveness of the work across all SAIs of EUROSAI and also to focus the work on the specific context of our region and our particular SAIs as well as to extract specific lessons and best practises for the sharing and codifying knowledge.
From the INTOSAI Framework’s three ways of communication with civil society, the Project Group’s main focus will be on the: two-way consulting; and collaborative/partnerships format engagements with civil society. In terms of the surveys, a review of responses and engaged SAIs will be made to highlight and tailor additional questions to the specific goals of the project group. For instance, the questions and respective responses from SAIs on ‘main challenges and risks of engaging with citizens’ would benefit further exploration.
The Project Group aims at exploring the benefits and risks of civil society engagement throughout the main audit stages - planning / conducting / reporting / follow up in order to facilitate a robust practice of engagement with civil society. The PG will look at the different aspects of such engagementin various contexts of each audit stage.
During discussions of the results of the project, the PG will determine the best option (and format) for ensuring continuity of the results and maximising the impact of the PG’s work. One of the options is to provide a best practice guide, complementary to the INTOSAI CBC framework on SAIs engaging with Civil Society, that can be used in the audit planning.
Objective
The objective of this Project Group is to expand upon previous work in civil society engagement and develop information for EUROSAI SAIs and their auditors in applying relevant civil society engagement practices in the
various stages of audit work.
Contact
maris.klindzans@lrvk.gov.lv
00371 6 7017695Documentation
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