Performance or Compliance? Performance Audit and Public Management in Five Countries

Performance audit is now in fashion, but in the past it has been a somewhat closed world, little studied by outsiders. Now an international team of researchers has studied the work of five national audit offices -- France, Finland, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. The picture thus revealed contains elements of technical innovation, methodological challenge, and crucial strategic choice.

Performance audit, as practised by national audit offices, is a relatively recent and rapidly developing set of activities. Auditors claim to have moved beyond issues of compliance and regularity and to be able directly to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of public programmes, projects, and institutions. These are developments with considerable implications for both democratic accountablility and managerial efficiency. Until now they have received little independent scrutiny, but in this book an international team of researchers analyses the growth of performance audit in five countries: France, Finland, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. It is argued that audit offices face a series of strategic choices, and that in different countries they have thus far chosen somewhat different trajectories.

Christopher Pollitt and Hilkka Summa: Performance Audit and Public Management Reform; Hilkka Summa: Performance Audit: Definitions and Frameworks; Christopher Pollitt: The Changing Context; Christopher Pollitt: The Management/Audit Interface; Hilkka Summa: Performance Audit: The Object of Study; Christopher Pollitt and Robert Mul: Criteria; Jeremy Lonsdale, Robert Mul, and Christopher Pollitt: The Auditor's Craft; Jeremy Lonsdale: Methods; Marit Waerness: Products; Jeremy Lonsdale: Impacts; Christopher Pollitt: Overview; Appendix One: Research Methods; Appendix Two: Supreme Audit Institutions: The Basics; Appendix Three: The Development of Performance Audit; References

Christopher Pollitt is currently Professor of Public Management at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He has worked as an Assistant Principal and Principal in the UK civil service and as an academic and consultant. He was Professor of Government at Brunel University from 1990-98, President of the European Evaluation Society from 1995-97 and an advisor to the European Commission from 1996. Xavier Girre is Manager (conseiller) at the Cours des Comptes in Paris. He has been involved in audits of major public firms, diplomatic services, and various bodies in the defence sector. He has previously been an Assistant Professor in Economy at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. Jeremy Lonsdale is Audit manager at the National Audit Office, London, working on value for money studies. He is a qualified accountant and formerly worked in the Corporate Policy Unit. Robert Mul is currently director of an audit unit in Rotterdam. He was formerly the head of the Algem