Turkey -Technical Assistance to the Turkish Court of Accounts in Preparation

This project was commissioned by the European Union Delegation and provided technical assistance to the Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA) to support that institution in preparing for its new mandate in the domain of Performance Auditing following the new TCA law. The project has been implemented by ECORYS Nederland BV who contracted two experts:  Ferdinand Pot (full time ECORYS employee and Team leader);  Robert Reeve (free lance expert). Staring from the objectives of the project, this Final Report provides an overview of the activities that have been carried out during project implementation and presents the outputs that were delivered. The project started on 13 September 2011 and the contract expired on 22 December 2011. By Administrative Order, the project was extended until January 13. Summary: With the quick delivery of the first draft guideline and well-managed pilot audit implementation, the Expert can confirm that the Court of Accounts has gripped the opportunity to take ownership of the guideline and templates. The Court of Accounts is now in a position to drive forward the agreed performance audit approach and improve it further based on wider practical audit experience. The meetings and briefings produced a vast amount of useful and helpful information that informed the guideline and associated material. The Court of Accounts should continue to analyse and review the approach in order to embed performance information audit swiftly, both internally and externally. Key issues that emerged from the Expert’s work that the Court of Accounts should consider are detailed below:  The management of the Turkish Court of Accounts should assess the resource implications of the implementation of the Performance Information Audit Guideline. It should make a realistic assessment to what extent this new task could be effectuated within the existing audit capacity. Also, is should consider whether the audit of the performance information will be integrated within the financial regularity audit teams or whether specialised teams will be set up to conduct this new task;  In order to achieve wider recognition of the new performance audit approach, the Court of Accounts should consider developing a programme of external awareness raising. For example, through performance audit conferences and seminars, as well as workshops directed at specific ministries/ public bodies;  The Court of Accounts limited staff resources make the new performance audit approach challenging and it would be helpful to be able to place reliance on the work of Internal Audit. However, it is noted that Internal Audit Units are not set up in all ministries and this is a clear impediment to the effective assessment and monitoring of internal control. This might be a potential area for discussion and influencing between the Court of Accounts, the Ministry of Finance and the various ministries.