Common audit areas in IT is a project activity that SAO Czech Republic has launched together with its partner SAI Estonia. The main objective of the project is to share information, intentions and ideas in an efficient and beneficial way.

Overall, the idea of sharing audit plans and topics is not new. However, during the debates with different SAIs it has become apparent that certain internal policies of SAIs may not allow to share all the details of SAIs’ audit plans.

In Estonia, public organisations have their own information systems to process information relevant to the state and its citizens to provide public services. Information and services often run on different systems that suit the function of a given organisation. X-Road is a distributed information exchange platform that makes it possible for these different systems to communicate all across the governmental sector; for example, the police can access data from the health system, tax board or business registry, and vice versa.

On the basis of the Organic Law of 15 August 2001 on finance laws, the Finance Committee of the Senate asked the Court of Accounts on December 2018 to carry out an investigation into the conduct of the State’s major digital projects. The resulting report was published in July 2020.

As a rule, responsibilities for assessing and collecting tax lie with Germany’s federal states. A share of the revenues from income tax and turnover tax goes to the federal government. For this reason, we study the IT processes used by the federal states’ tax authorities.

The German SAI performed data-driven audits on publicly accessible datasets to explore new data-analytic methods and tools. In one of these audit exercises, we analysed federal communication activities and their impact on the public image of digital legislation. The purpose of our audit work was to provide insights into the contents and topics communicated by federal government departments and agencies and to explore if and how these influenced the public image of the new legislation.

In its strategy, the State Audit Office of Hungary (hereinafter referred to as “SAO”) set the objective of evaluating the financial-economic status of local governments and revealing their risks. This was justified by the significant use of public funds by the local government subsystem of the public finances, the diversity of tasks performed by municipalities and the significant impact of the indicators of the local government subsystem on public finances as a whole.

The first report of LGMS (Local Government Monitoring System) prepared on the basis of the risk monitoring system was published on 20 April 2018 by the SAO. Based on the evaluation of the data of the annual, interim budget and balance sheet reports of the local governments in the central information system of the Hungarian State Treasury, the methodology indicates the areas where adverse economic flows or economic events have occurred, that justify immediate or other (medium-term) measures. Indicators are assigned to determine the risky areas and their underlying factors of local government financial management, which may be low, medium or high risk value.

Starting 2019, the Romanian Court of Accounts started to digitize the audit processes in order to improve the quality of the public external public audit activities. Romanian auditors develop compliance, financial and performance actions throughout the country, auditing about 15000 entities. Follow-up actions were also implemented.

Processes were implemented based on the 2019 regulations with minor updates from the 4th quarter of 2020 implemented. RODAS, methodologies and audit manuals were taken into consideration in order to design the functionalities required.

In 2020, the State Audit Institution of the Republic of Serbia conducted two IT performance audits - "Information Security in Health Information Systems" and "Management of Information Systems in Public Enterprises for Unified Billing".

The Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia (hereinafter: Court of Audit) audited how does the Republic of Slovenia ensure cybersecurity. It was the first audit reviewing the topic of cybersecurity by the Court of Audit, which started in 2019, three years after the Republic of Slovenia adopted Cybersecurity strategy and a year after the Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia adopted its first act on cyber/information security – the Information Security Act.

Upcoming ITWG annual meeting

Next event scheduled provisionally for November 2021 will be the 14^th Meeting of the ITWG focusing on group’s work plan activities as well as, in a separate session open to all INTOSAI members, on cyber-security The meeting will be hosted by the National Audit Office Estonia, possibly as a hybrid event available both online as well as on spot for those able to travel. Fingers crossed that the pandemic slows down and we can see some members in Tallinn!

ITWG e-Seminar “From Code to Action: SAIs exploring the world of Artificial Intelligence“ took place on the 11th of May 2021. About 250 participants from close to 50 SAIs were hosted.The e-Seminar started with the presentation of a package delivery robot that is able to transport parcels all over the city of Tallinn. After this short introduction of the robot as one form of AI, opening words from the ITWG Chair Mr Janar Holm were said.

The State Audit Office is launching a series of seven events titled 'Webinar Wednesdays', an international online program from April to November 2021, to follow up on EUROSAI project groups led or coordinated by it, discuss topical issues, explore new methodological approaches and initiate international audit dialogue, knowledge sharing and cooperation.

The pandemic has rewritten the basic rules of how people live and work together. As follows, international contacts transformed and changed significantly, some of which are beneficial, while others less. What we are missing the most are in person interactions, which invisibly motivate people to talk, share thoughts, cooperate and work together as a group during the professional meetings. This realisation led to the creation of the 'Webinar Wednesdays' series, the dedicated objective of which is to create an interactive international virtual professional platform where the experts of supreme audit institutions can exchange experiences and share ideas on various topics, the possible most spirited and vivid way.