The Swedish National Audit Office’s Ten-year Anniversary: Auditing, Responsibility, Learning

Ingvar Mattson Magnus Isberg

In the anthology The Swedish National Audit Office’s Ten-year Anniversary: Auditing, Responsibility, Learning (SNS Förlag), seven authors, auditors and researchers provide different perspectives of the trend and future of national audits.

The Swedish National Audit Office was established ten years ago as a new government authority under parliament, which was to be independent from party politics. The objective was to reinforce the parliamentary power of control and improve national audits. There has been no increase in the interest of members of parliament in using national audits in their work, however. This is one of the conclusions in a new anthology on the role of the Swedish National Audit Office.

In the anthology The Swedish National Audit Office’s Ten-year Anniversary: Auditing, Responsibility, Learning (SNS Förlag), seven authors, auditors and researchers provide different perspectives of the trend and future of national audits.

The first ten years in the history of the Swedish National Audit Office are characterized by turbulence and an intensive debate. A central issue is whether national audits should mainly create conditions for exercising responsibility or rather favour improvement and efficiency in those activities that have been audited.

Some conclusions in the anthology:
The reform has not entailed any considerable differences when it comes to how members of parliament use the information from the Swedish National Audit Office as a basis for decisions, government bills or interpellations.
The explosion of audits and evaluations in the government sector has created a society that is subject to control. What motivates the special independence of the audits of efficiency is that they provide the conditions for exercising responsibility.

– The new polity (2010) increased the pressure on parliament to take its follow-up and evaluation assignment seriously. The question is what the members of parliament can do to make better use of the audit information. And how can the National Audit Office become better at communicating its reports? This is a continuous challenge, according to Ingvar Mattson.

The editors of the anthology are MAGNUS ISBERG, Associate Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University and INGVAR MATTSON, PhD in Political Science and Head of Chancery at the Standing Committee of Finance in Swedish Parliament.

Seminar
The Swedish National Audit Office’s Ten-year Anniversary: Auditing, Responsibility, Learning was presented at an SNS seminar on January 23. The people invited to discuss the book were, besides the editors MAGNUS ISBERG and INGVAR MATTSON, also the authors of the individual chapters LOUISE BRINGSELIUS, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Lund University and JAN-ERIC FURUBO, Audit Counselor at The Swedish National Audit Office. In the panel debate, there was a discussion between Mattson and CLAES NORGREN, Auditor General and ANN-MARIE BEGLER, Director General of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate.

Furubo raised the question of whether audits mainly constitute a control function or are rather meant to provide support. A controlling audit emphasizes the exercise of responsibility as the primary objective while an audit that is meant to provide support helps authorities and others make improvements by emphasizing examples of success. Bringselius emphasized that it is possible to discern a structure in the Swedish National Audit Office with the exercise of responsibility which prevents a movement towards audits that provide support. However, Mattson considered that it would be difficult to only take a stand on one perspective:

– I do think, when all is said and done, that there are elements of both kinds of audits and that this is not only about one or the other of the views.

Claes Norgren also opened up to a discussion about the importance of external communication for the Swedish National Audit Office:

– It is very important that we are open about our audits. The Swedish National Audit Office is currently part of a process where there are new demands for budget control from the surrounding world.

Ann-Marie Begler considered that communication in itself is not sufficient, but that the Swedish National Audit Office should also target a greater consensus with their objects for audit in the future. This is of greatest importance for the legitimacy and acceptance of audits, according to Begler.

Participants in the meeting:
ANN-MARIE BEGLER, Director General, Swedish Schools Inspectorate
LOUISE BRINGSELIUS, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Lund University
JAN-ERIC FURUBO, Audit Counselor, Swedish National Audit Office
MAGNUS ISBERG, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stockholm University
INGVAR MATTSON, Administrative Director, The Standing Committee on Finance
CLAES NORGREN, Auditor General, Swedish National Audit Office

The meeting was chaired by ILINCA BENSON, Research Director, SNS.