Chapter 1 Supreme Audit Institutions’ input into the policy cycle

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 13

Executive summary

New strategies for public governance, catalysed by the financial crisis, economic deceleration and the need for governments to do more with less, have compelled countries to take introspective reviews of government processes and their outcomes. Moreover, a decline in citizens’ trust in government, coupled with a surge in inequality, underscores the need for public programmes to be more effective and responsive to citizens’ needs.

A more systemic understanding of what is effective and efficient is critical to addressing long-term and complex economic, social and environmental policy challenges. Effectively selecting the programmes and policy tools that bring value-for-money, and making strategic trade-offs, is not an ad hoc process and should involve consideration of evidence and analysis. However, in a resource-constrained environment, governments can face challenges in implementing a broader vision in the face of cross-governmental initiatives and varying policy priorities.

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) have untapped potential to help governments meet these challenges and can provide critical evidence to inform what works and what does not in public governance. Independent and professional SAIs are traditionally known and trusted for holding government to account for the use of public resources. However, their activities have evolved over recent decades to provide a broader, more cross-cutting view of how processes and programmes function across government. There is potential for SAIs, through their external and objective analysis, to strengthen the evidence base on which policy decisions are made and complement assessments of value-for-money.

This report maps how ten leading SAIs are assessing policies and programmes related to key stages of the policy cycle. It focuses on the experience of SAIs from Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa and the United States. By matching SAI activity with government good practice and policy challenges, the report highlights that the goal of delivering value-for-money is shared between the legislature, the executive branch and SAIs, and could be better addressed by leveraging all actors’ potential.

Key findings:

 Participating SAIs are proactively investing expertise and resources into activities that provide insight and foresight. The promotion of accountability through oversight remains a core activity of SAIs’ work. However, SAIs are taking a systemic view in order to pinpoint cross-cutting issues and trends in the short term (insight), and to forecast policy implications and predict risks in the medium and long-term (foresight). For instance, some SAIs in the study provide insight into duplication, fragmentation and overlap across government, while others assess the preparedness of government to address long-term policy challenges, such as climate and demographic change.

SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS AND GOOD GOVERNANCE: OVERSIGHT, INSIGHT AND FORESIGHT © OECD 2016