Stages of Auditor Adoption of Practices
Past research and a review of examples on this website suggests that the extent of auditor adoption of performance measurement-related roles and practices covers a long continuum, characterized by three identifiable “stages.” Use these three stages as a guide to assessing the evolution of your audit organization as a user of performance measurement-related practices:
Experimental: An audit organization is in the “experimental stage” if it has been engaging in performance measurement-related practices on an ad hoc basis, perhaps testing particular techniques, but not yet noticeably building a record of documented experience with such practices.
Regular Practice: An audit organization in the “regular practice stage” has built significant capabilities in a limited number of performance measurement-related practices, and consistently uses any of those practices either by:
- Formally programming at least one practice into its regular workplan on a periodic basis (e.g., issuing or assuring annual performance reports, conducting biennial assessments of performance management systems, testing the reliability of a percentage of an entity’s measures each year), or
- Taking opportunities to design one or more practices into some of the audit office’s projects on a fairly consistent basis (e.g., most years, assessment of an agency’s or program’s performance measures will be built into at least one or two audits or studies).
Leadership: An audit organization moves on to the “leadership stage” when it has progressively built the number of performance measurement-related practices it uses, has taken on at least two or three major performance measurement-related “roles” in its entity, and has used its roles and practices to encourage improved performance management and accountability of the entity.
Auditor Reporting Relationships and Performance Measurement Leadership
Auditors with all three major government auditor reporting relationships can become performance measurement leaders in their entity and the profession. The reporting relationship of a government auditor is likely to have an affect on the specific roles and practices the auditor plays, and how the audit organization carries out those practices. However, the type of audit reporting relationship should not prevent an audit organization from advancing its performance measurement-related practices, or in playing a leadership role to help advance their entity’s performance management and accountability. For example, the four audit organizations with the most examples of practices represented in the 2004 guidebook Auditor Roles in Government Performance Measurement represent all three major types of government auditor reporting relationships:
- The Office of the City Auditor of Portland, Oregon, reports to an independently elected official, in this case to an elected city auditor.
- The Office of the City Auditor of Kansas City, Missouri, and OPPAGA in Florida both report to elected legislative bodies—a city council and a state legislature.
- The City Auditor Department of Phoenix, Arizona, reports to executive management, in this case to an appointed city manager.
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