Auditor General Charles Deguara presented the study highlighted in caption to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Anġlu Farrugia.
This study evaluated performance audit findings elicited through a review of 19 performance audit reports which were published by the NAO between 2017 and 2020. Performance audits assess if a government is making economic and efficient use of resources to effectively deliver its policy goals and achieve its intended impact. To varying degrees the findings in the performance audits undertaken impacted good public governance. These findings included issues related to Procurement Procedures, Monitoring and Enforcement, Risk Management, Compliance, Administration, Human Resources, Communication, Technology and Operations.
This review sought to link the performance audits findings of the 19 reports under study to the principles and related elements which constitute good public governance. Nonetheless, it is improbable that any finding would fit neatly and exclusively in any one element of governance. This occurs since performance audit findings tend to have a broad impact on good public governance. Consequently, the 283 performance audit findings identified in these audit reports were analysed against a construct depicting 14 elements of good public governance. These 14 elements relate to efficiency, effectiveness, sound financial management, accountability, sustainability and long-term orientation, strategies and policies, openness and transparency, contract management, responsiveness, ethical conduct, compliance to the regulatory framework, competence and capacity, innovation and technology, as well as social cohesion. A matrix portraying audit findings against the elements of governance resulted in 669 hits. This can be considered as a minimum since most of the audit findings, in practice, could affect all aspects of public governance due to the interrelated relationship of these 14 elements.
The shortcomings identified through this study clearly show that the NAO’s performance audits’ main findings revolved around the governance principles involving Efficiency and Effectiveness, Sound Financial Management (Economy) and Accountability. This situation materialised as, generally, the performance audits undertaken tended to focus more on the three Es (Economy, Efficiency, Effectiveness), while in many cases evaluation in relation to the other elements of good governance tended to be more incidental in nature rather than a direct consideration of specific governance elements within the respective audit objectives. Nonetheless, in view of the close interrelationships between these governance principles, these statistics do not in any way imply that one governance principle is more important than another. Moreover, low occurrence in one governance principle is not to be interpreted that such a weakness is not pervasive in other elements of good governance.
The performance audit reports within the scope of this study show that the opportunity existed for the successes brought about through the work of public organisations to have been, at times, achieved through less human and financial resources, more expediently and / or in accordance to predetermined objectives and goals. It becomes apparent that at least some of the findings reported could have been avoided through more robust planning, strategic and policy direction, control, communication with stakeholders, as well as monitoring. In part, these situations materialise in the absence of reliable information or because of fragmented information which detract management from taking decisions on the basis of comprehensive and timely data.
The NAO proposes nine strategic recommendations in terms of the main categories of findings identified in this evaluation.
The report can be accessed by visiting our website www.nao.gov.mt or on its Facebook page www.facebook.com/NAOMalta.
