The Revised INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements

1. Proposal on the INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements

The purpose ofthis proposal is to improve the credibility of INTOSAI’s professional pronouncements, assist in making them an authoritative framework for public sector auditing and enhance their technical quality. The proposal entails a series of changes in the current framework of ISSAIs and INTOSAI GOVs. These changes recognise the central importance of ISSAI 100, the fundamental principles of public sector auditing within the framework.

Key features of the revised INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements are as follows :

1)the revised framework is called the INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements (IFPP) to reflect the fact that it includes documents other than ISSAIs (standards);

2)the IFPP includes the overarching INTOSAI Principles (INTOSAI-P), the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAIs) and the supporting INTOSAI Guidance (GUID);

3)the ISSAI brand is retained and ISSAIs remain an integral part of the IFPP;

4)only documents that set out requirements to support ISSAI 100 and are consistent with ISSAI 100 are designated as ISSAIs;

5)the IFPP is designed to clarify what SAIs need to do to claim ISSAI compliance;

6)the IFPP provides for futuredevelopment of an INTOSAI competency framework for public sector auditing as well as other pronouncements that may facilitate ISSAI implementation;

7)thecategory of INTOSAI-GOVs is not retained separately butmergedwith the category of Guidelines on specific subjects into the new category designated as GUIDs.

The IFPP is illustrated in the diagram below. There are three main groups of documents within this framework. At the top level are the INTOSAI principles, including the Lima Declaration and the Mexico Declaration on SAI Independence. These appear in green in the diagram. Next come the auditing standards - the ISSAIs– and a new category reserved for future development, the competency standards. Appearing in red on the left in the diagram, the ISSAIs set out the requirements that have to be fulfilled by a SAI claiming ISSAI compliance in its audit reports. Finally, there are the guidance documents. Marked in blue in the diagram, these documents are non-mandatory and offer the SAI and the auditor guidancein a range of areas such as implementing the ISSAIs, insights when planning, executing or reporting on specific subject matters or tools for assessing ISSAI compliance.

The revised “INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements (IFPP)”

This revised framework addresses a number of challenges in the current framework of ISSAIs and INTOSAI GOVs:

  • it clarifies the scope of the framework. The concepts of professional pronouncements, INTOSAI-Ps, ISSAIs and GUIDs will be defined in a set of classification criteria;
  • it identifies clearly those standards that have to be complied with by a SAI that wishes to claim ISSAI compliance in its audit reports
  • it opens up the possibility for INTOSAI to develop pronouncements on competencies consistent with the principles on competencies in ISSAI 100;
  • it makes a clear distinction between the ISSAI standards that include application guidance (in red, and mandatory if a SAI wishes to claim ISSAI compliance in its audit reports)and non-mandatory supplementary guidance (in blue);
  • it distinguishes between “SAI organisational guidance” and “Other guidance”and opens up space within the framework to include elements that might be useful for SAIs which are on the road towards ISSAI implementation, as well as elements such as the current ISSAI 5600 on peer reviews;
  • by clarifying the overarching role of ISSAI 100 – the fundamental principles of public sector auditing , it is possible to place the subject-specific guidance that currently appears in the ISSAI 5000 series in their appropriate place as supplementary non-mandatory subject-specific guidance that SAIs and auditors might find useful when carrying out financial, performance or compliance audits in the areas concerned;
  • by splitting audit principles and audit standards for financial, performance and compliance audits (see the black line in each of the relevant blocks in the diagram), the framework acknowledges that, as set out in ISSAI 100, paragraph 8, SAIs may adopt their own standards providing these are consistent with the principles set out in the present ISSAIs 100 to 400;
  • itallows for the elimination of overlaps and duplication by merging a range of ISSAIs and INTOSAI GOVs that address similar issues into GUIDS.
  • finally, this clarification of the overarching role of the fundamental principles of public sector auditing opens up the possibility of systematically reviewing existing pronouncements to ensure that they are coherent with these fundamental principles and free of inconsistencies.

FIPP has developed clear classification criteria for the three categories of INTOSAI professional pronouncements in the IFPP – INTOSAI-Ps, ISSAIs and GUIDs.

The revised framework will be implementedthrough a broad collaboration between FIPP and all INTOSAI working groups by observing the due process andthrough the strategic development plan for the INTOSAI Framework of Professional Pronouncements as endorsed by the Governing Board.