What to Expect—An Auditee's Guide to the Performance Audit Process

The underlying principles that guide the work of the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) are ensuring respectfulness, trust, and integrity, while maintaining our independence, professionalism, and objectivity.

Questions often arise about how we conduct our performance audits—more specifically, what the entities that we audit can expect from us and what we expect from them. The purpose of the accompanying information package is to provide answers to these questions by outlining

• our objectives,
• the principles governing interactions between auditors and auditees, and
• administrative information.

I hope that this information provides entity officials with a valuable reference that will encourage productive and respectful relations between audited entities and my audit staff.

The objectives of our relationships with the entities we audit are to

• make an ongoing and consistent effort to understand the context in which government departments and agencies do their work,
• promote open two-way communications, and
• act in a professional and objective manner.

Ultimately, the aim is to better serve Parliament by ensuring that our performance audit reports and recommendations are fair and objective and are seen to be fair and objective by those responsible for making the necessary changes in how the federal government manages public funds.

Information sheets on the following topics are also available:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Interaction with departmental audit committees
• Access to entity information by the Office of the Auditor General
• Handling and treatment of information
• Long-term audit plan—One-Pass Plan
• Planning phase of a performance audit
• Examination phase of a performance audit
• Reporting phase of a performance audit
• Developing and responding to recommendations
• Tabling
• After the performance audit
• Multi-entity audits
• A road map for performance audits
• Glossary of terms