The Auditor-General’s Annual report for 2018-19 has revealed the Audit Office completed a record 21 performance audits in the year to the end of June and partnered with outside consultants to conduct around 40 per cent of its investigations.
In her report, Auditor-General Margaret Crawford (pictured) drew attention to the strengthened focus placed on cyber security, both within the Audit Office and in the organisations it audited.
Ms Crawford said all Audit Office staff had undertaken cyber security training and the Office had achieved minimum maturity levels as prescribed by the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential eight mitigation strategies.
“Agency information technology control environments will continue to be a focus of our financial audits across all sectors, and for performance audits in specific agencies,” Ms Crawford said.
She said that while the performance audit survey results were not always as good as the Office would like, feedback in relation to its financial audits remained positive.
“I am pleased to report that we have fully embedded the local government sector into our business,” Ms Crawford said.
“I would like to point to the strong partnerships we are building with external Audit Service Providers,” she said.
“This year we undertook a major commissioning exercise and now around 40 per cent of our audits are undertaken with partner firms.”
Ms Crawford said the partnership approach had not only helped manage the volume of work but helped the Office learn and keep pace with good practice audit techniques, including data analytics.
“For a second year we have published an annual audit program on our website.”
She said the 2019-20 program forecast performance audits over the next three years.
“Our audit program will pay increased attention to the fundamentals of good government,” Ms Crawford said.
She said this included transparency; documentation and record keeping; good process and advice to government; compliance with delegations and other legislative requirements; data quality; and the measurement of performance.
The Auditor-General’s 113-page Annual Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
