Public Reporting Standards (May 2019)

 

The Northern Ireland Audit Office provides the Northern Ireland Assembly with independent assurance about the performance and accountability of the public sector, and provide insights into how well public services are being delivered. We do this by carrying out high quality risk-based audits of the public sector and report our findings to the Assembly and the public.

These standards aim to underpin our public reporting audit work. Achieving these standards and the consistent application of the public reporting guidelines will enable us to demonstrate the robustness of our work and the strength of the approaches we use.

The standards are linked to our priorities contained in NIAO’s Strategic Corporate Framework 2018-21 to:

  • provide assurance, add value and promote excellence in public administration;
  • to support public sector transformation in Northern Ireland; and
  • to transform our business to meet the emerging challenges of the future.

The standards are intended to provide an overview of good practice for embedding effective project management issues, such as quality assurance; and for specific project stages, such as drafting and producing reports. Adopting and applying these standards will help us to further improve the quality of our work and support consistency. They should also allow us to measure our performance throughout the course of projects, and to increase the impact of our work.