Evidence about the value of financial statement audit in the public sector

ABSTRACT

Multiple, complementary explanations have been developed to explain audit demand. Substantial evidence exists for these explanations in the private sector, but they have been explored to a lesser extent in the public sector. The authors assess the extent to which these explanations for the value of auditing are relevant in the public sector by examining evidence from New Zealand. The use of overlapping explanations was found to help to explain how auditing is valuable to a wide variety of users.

IMPACT

This paper uses empirical evidence to examine the private sector explanations for audit in the public sector setting. It argues that attention to these arguments can assist supreme audit institutions (SAIs) in articulating how public sector audits can demonstrate their ongoing relevance to citizens, parliament and other stakeholders, as required by the applicable international standards. The paper has recommendations for national audit bodies, government accountants and policy-makers.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency costs
• armchair auditors
• audit demand
• financial reporting
• management control
• New Zealand
• Office of the Auditor-General (NZ)
• supreme audit institutions (SAIs)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.