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INTOSAI Working Group on the Audit of Privatisation,
Economic Regulation and Public Private Partnerships



INTOSAI Working Group on the Audit of Privatisation

Main Conclusions of the Thirteenth Meeting London, 27 and 28 September 2006

  1. The INTOSAI Working Group on the Audit of Privatisation held its 13th meeting in London on 27 and 28 September 2006. The meeting was attended by representatives of 28 Supreme Audit Institutions (3 who were not yet members of the Group) and two external speakers.
  2. The meeting opened with welcoming remarks from Sir John Bourn, Comptroller and Auditor General of the United Kingdom and Chairman of the Working Group. Sir John extended a warm welcome to delegates and hoped that they found the meeting productive and useful.
  3. Sir John Bourn drew attention to the possibility of a change in name of the Working Group and the need to continue this progress in light of the next INCOSAI meeting in Mexico City in 2007 and suggested.


Meeting Objectives

  1. At XVIII INCOSAI it was agreed that in the period leading up to XIX INCOSAI in 2007, the Working Group should focus its efforts on:
     
    • Developing and submitting to the Governing Board sets of case studies which cater for differences between SAIs.
    • Continuing to adjust guidelines in the light of experience.
    • To carry out more training through the INTOSAI Development Initiative.
    • To do joint studies with two or more SAIs doing joint reports on selected features of each other’s programmes.
  2. The agenda for the 13th meeting was able to meet this remit through the following work programme:
     
    • Presentations from the SAIs of the Republic of Yemen, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the guest speaker from the OECD on a range of issues relating to the audit of privatisation. There was also a paper from the SAI of Australia on the audit of economic regulation. Papers were presented from the SAIs of Brazil, the UK and our guest speaker from Partnerships UK relating to PPPs.
    • A discussion around the Working Groups Draft Technical Case Examples and the best way to take this initiative forward.
    • The Working Group notice board
    • Discussion on updating the four existing sets of guidelines
    • Dictionary of privatisation terms produced by the UK in collaboration with the Russian Chamber of Accounts.
       

Main Conclusions

  1. The main conclusions of the 13th meeting were:
     
    • Guidelines The Working Group agreed to update the PPP guidelines in light of recent experience to fulfil our remit in advance of XIX INCOSAI.
    • Training SAIs considered that they still had a need for training, particularly in the audit of Public Private Partnerships.
    • Case technical examples The SAI of Brazil suggested that it would be useful to provide a web link to the examples where possible back to the full SAI report.
    • Joint working The Working Group agreed to carry out further joint working projects, establish a network of sectoral and thematic experts and that the addition of an online collaboration tool to the website would facilitate joint working.
    • Timing of Audits While only 15 % of delegates had statutory responsibility for carrying out pre-privatisation activities the majority of members were in favour of undertaking more pre-privatisation activities.
    • Title of the Group The Working Group welcomed Sir John’s suggestion that the title of the Group could be expanded to cover economic regulation and Public Private Partnerships given that these areas now form a significant area of our work.
Thirteenth Meeting Index