Auditors Change Roles to Add Value
Auditors Increase their Value by Changing Practices as Entities’ Systems Evolve
Auditor roles and practices can, and generally should, change as performance management evolves in a government entity. For example, over time, an auditor’s testing of performance measures and data (Practice 2a. Test Relevance or Reliability) can lead to improved agency performance measurement practices, making higher quality performance information available. The audit organization may then find it useful to reduce its level of effort testing relevance and reliability, and to focus more on other practices, for example, helping agency managers make better use of performance data (Practice 4b: Assist Management) or helping legislators interpret the information and use it to inform their decision making (Practice 3c: Assist External Decision Making). Auditors may also take advantage of higher quality agency data to do higher-value performance audits (Practice 1a: Audit Performance), as they no longer have to do primary collection of basic performance data, but can build on available data by collecting complementary information for policy evaluations or other advanced studies. Through these kinds of changes in practices, auditors can find new, more effective ways to add value to their entity as their entity’s systems and practices evolve.
The actual ways audit organizations should change their roles and practices depends on the context of the government entity they audit and their place in the entity. Brief case histories on this website describe how audit organizations with years of experience have changed their practices in different ways as performance management practices evolved in different ways in their entities over time. In addition to the content on this website, the training courses provided as part of this project, particularly the course “A New Service Model: Auditor Roles in Government Performance Measurement,” should help auditors determine their best opportunities for adapting new practices to use in the government entities they serve. |
