Download or read book A History of British National Audit written by David Dewar and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The core theme of the book is the importance of an independent state audit to ensure that the Executive is held accountable to Parliament. Instilling effective financial control and accountability for the use of public funds and the proper conduct of public business has been an incremental process that has taken centuries. This book provides a detailed history of the forces and personalities involved in the development of public sector audit, including the battles which extended well into the 20th century to establish a public sector audit that was constitutionally and in practice independent from the influence and control of the Executive. It identifies key themes that have emerged and re-emerged in these developments, and the challenges and obstacles faced and overcome over the years to arrive at today's modern audit framework and to establish current principles and practice in accountability to Parliament and the public. The book charts the movement of public sector audit from a focus on the presentation and accuracy of accounts to the introduction of the added dimension of ensuring that funds are spent only for purposes approved by Parliament and that resources have been used efficiently, effectively and with economy. It explores the seminal relationships of the NAO and its predecessors with the Treasury, spending departments and the Public Accounts Committee; and it deals with the impact of major changes still taking place in the objectives, management and delivery of government programmes and services, including the growing involvement of outside agencies and the private sector. The book reviews the NAO's current achievements, continuing challenges, developments in the range and nature of its work, and future priorities. Importantly, it provides an authoritative source of reference for professionals and academics, while remaining accessible to readers with a more general interest in the developments and issues examined.
Download or read book Auditing Standards written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sets out the auditing standards by which the British National Audit Office is governed.
Download or read book A History of Auditing written by Derek Matthews and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the history of the audit process in Britain, demonstrating that the characteristic features of the auditing industry are a diversity in practice based largely on the different types of clients the auditors serve.
Download or read book The Audit of War written by Correlli Barnett and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2011-07 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Correlli Barnett described his Audit or War as an 'operational study' to 'uncover the causes of Britain's protracted decline as an industrial country since the Second World War.' First published in 1986, the book swiftly became one of the most controversial and influential historical works of its time. '[The Audit of War] argued that British industry during the Second World War was scandalously inefficient, a situation Barnett blamed on an establishment more concerned with welfare than with industry, technology or the capacity of the nation to fight a war... Alan Clark records approvingly that Mrs Thatcher herself read it...' David Edgerton, London Review of Books 'A stimulating polemic.' Times Literary Supplement 'A formidable book, essential reading.' Asa Briggs, Financial Times
Download or read book Audit Accountability and Government written by Fidelma White and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explains the constitutional purpose and significance of audit, and aspects of accountability in the British system of government. It suggests that audit delivers managerial accountability. It explains the basic concepts of accounting and audit, and sets audit in its historical context.
Download or read book Financial Auditing and Reporting written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Corporate governance of the National Audit Office written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Accounts Commission and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-03-06 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Response to the Tiner Review contained in the Public Accounts Commission, 14th report, HC 328, session 2007-08 (ISBN 9780215513625)
Download or read book National Audit Office Main Supply Estimate 2010 2011 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Accounts Commission and published by . This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Audit Office main supply Estimate 2010-2011
Download or read book National Audit Office Estimates for 1999 2000 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Audit of War written by Correlli Barnett and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Audit of War Correlli Barnett places Britain's decline since the Second World War in a startling new perspective. He shows that Britain's wartime industrial performance, far from marking a supreme achievement of national genius and effort, was in reality characterised by all the classic symptoms of the 'British disease'--incompetent management, obstructive trade unions, restrictive practices, wildcat strikes, old-fashioned plant, chronic shortages of skilled personnel, and appalling weaknesses in the newest technologies"--Book jacket.
Download or read book The Effectiveness of Internal Audit in Central Government written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the effectiveness of internal audit in central government, covering both main departments and their associated arm's length bodies. Government is not getting the most out of the £70 million it spends on internal audit because the service does not always focus on the right issues and it is often not of sufficient quality to be useful in decision-making. 84 per cent of respondents to an NAO consultation considered internal audit added some or substantial value to their organisation, but had concerns over the current depth of insight, relevance and underlying execution of internal audit work. Many key stakeholders believe that internal audit work is not sufficiently tailored to be relevant to the different issues facing individual organisations. Treasury guidance on what internal audit should deliver is not sufficiently specific and there is little consistency in the application of standards. Variations in quality and coverage mean that the NAO often cannot take assurance from internal audit work. There are specific areas where internal audit could be more effective: the usefulness and relevance of reports; the expertise of staff, including expertise on IT-based information systems; the identification of efficiencies in the organisation; and the ability to offer advice to senior management. HM Treasury's Internal Audit Transformation Programme is a partial solution to the issues identified by the NAO, but needs more detail on what should be expected of an effective internal audit service. Nor does the Treasury have an accurate view on the costs of internal audit in government.
Download or read book Public Sector Auditing written by Sir John Bourn and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-07-31 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on 20 years of experience as Comptroller and Auditor General, and head of the United Kingdom National Audit Office, Public Sector Auditing: Is it Value for Money? is Sir John Bourn’s own account of the role and influence value for money auditing has in holding governments to account and in helping public bodies improve the ways in which they deliver services. Key features include: In-depth case studies from UK, US, Canada, China, India and Australia; Detailed analysis of complex areas of public expenditure such as health, education, privatisation, regulation, defence and IT; Examples of how auditing can promote positive outcomes rather than negative post mortems. This book is relevant for people working in both the public and private sectors, and should be essential reading for the staff of public sector audit institutions around the world, as well as commercial accountancy firms and students of accountancy, politics, economics and public management.
Download or read book Auditor s Talk written by Derek Matthews and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-21 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an oral history of the auditing profession in Britain from 1920s to the present day based on extended extracts from interviews with 77 past and present practitioners. Those interviewed ranged from a nonagenarian who qualified in the 1920s, to active contemporaries, from sole practitioners to the present day heads of the Big Five accounting firms. The often candid interviews uncover a surprising variety of experience and opinions and allow a group of often fascinating individuals to tell their own stories.
Download or read book Performance Auditing written by Jeremy Lonsdale and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It is time, 15 years on from the coining of the "Audit Explosion", to re-appraise the growth of new forms of auditing. As we move into what might be called "Auditing in Austerity" this book gives us that overview. An extremely well-informed team of authors has been assembled to deliver a comparative analysis that successfully mixes "insider" and "outsider" perspectives. This should be required reading, not just for auditors and their academic hangers-on, but for the wider audience of those interested in contemporary developments in democratic accountability and policymaking.' – Christopher Pollitt, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium 'This book fills an important gap in the market. At a time when governments around the world face the largest deficits in decades, there is a strong need to reduce public expenditures whilst ensuring greater value for money from public services. This book addresses these concerns and many more. Each of the chapter authors is a senior practitioner and/or an academic who specialises in performance auditing and accountability in modern complex democracies. They explore the nature of the concepts which underlie current practice; set out a variety of institutional structures and processes, and identify the limits of both theory and practice. These make this a book of considerable significance and one which makes an important contribution to our understanding of the democratic process. This is not a narrowly-focused book only of interest to those who specialise in performance auditing. Given the richness of its analysis and the fine-grained understanding of institutions and processes, it has much to say to students of public administration, management and policy analysis. I am confident that this will rapidly become the standard reference for those who are interested in performance auditing.' – Peter M. Jackson AcSS, University of Leicester, UK 'What a good read. Insightful and challenging. It is likely to incite a lot of discussion on the wide-ranging views from the very well-informed and qualified contributors, not least from those who actually have to implement the findings and recommendations of performance audit reports. The focus is rightly on accountability for performance not only in achieving government program objectives in an economic, efficient and effective manner, but also on the audit institutions themselves. It should be welcomed by the public sector and particularly by the parliamentary institutions concerned with achieving accountability for government performance.' – Pat Barrett AO, Australian National University and former Australian Auditor-General (1995–2005) 'This book is a much welcome tonic for public administration. It is one of the few books that explicitly focus on how audit institutions carry out their performance auditing responsibilities. While auditors will likely read this, the authors have geared the book to a broader readership, including public managers who are often the subject of performance audits.' – From the foreword by Paul Posner, George Mason University, US This state-of-the-art book examines the development of performance audit, drawing on the experience in a number of different countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The expert contributors identify the trajectory of performance audit, examine how it is conducted and consider what it is contributing to effective government. They conclude that, in the face of new challenges, performance auditors should focus both on their core responsibilities to ensure accountability, and continue to develop more insightful and sophisticated approaches to enable them to assess the growing complexity of the delivery of public services. By doing so, they can continue to play a valuable role in democratic accountability. Providing an up-to-date overview and discussion of performance audit, this highly topical book will appeal to all those working within audit, academics working in the fields of public management and public administration, as well practitioners in and close to state audit institutions. Members of Parliament, evaluators, internal auditors, researchers, policy analysts and consultants will also find this book invaluable.
Download or read book The UK s Changing Democracy written by Patrick Dunleavy and published by LSE Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.
Download or read book Follow the Money written by Duncan Campbell-Smith and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 1162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most books on politics and government take a view from the top down. They focus on the individuals and institutions that set policies in place and make the laws. But how are these policies and laws translated into action on the ground, where their success or failure helps determine the day to day running of schools and hospitals, police forces and councils? This is the much less familiar territory explored by Follow The Money. It tells the story of the men and women responsible for keeping track of the money spent locally on public services since the early 1980s. What emerges is a rare behind-the-scenes account of the political world in which central government edicts come up against the reality of how things are made to happen at the grass roots. Follow The Money shows how the Commission has helped over 25 years to transform the management of public services, including the NHS, while mediating in an often tense relationship between central and local government from the Thatcher era to the years of New Labour. The result, encompassing a string of scandals and battles between town hall and Whitehall, is a compelling narrative for which an accounting qualification is most certainly not required.
Download or read book National Audit Office Annual Report and Accounts 2012 13 written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by . This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
