Official documents and archives

Here, you can read about official documents at the Swedish National Audit Office – where to search for and access official documents, the types of official documents we handle, any provisions regarding confidentiality and information about our culling decisions.

Organisation and activities

The Swedish National Audit Office is an authority under the Riksdag tasked with auditing central government activities. We are also tasked with working in international development cooperation and we represent Sweden as a Supreme Audit Institution in international contexts.

The Swedish National Audit Office was established on 1 July 2003 through a merger of the former Swedish National Audit Office (1961–2003) and the Parliamentary Auditors (1867–2003). Between 2003 and 2010, the Swedish National Audit Office had a board composed of members of the Riksdag. Since 2011, the authority has had a parliamentary council – the Riksdag Council for the Swedish National Audit Office.

More information about our operations, how we are managed and how we are organised can be found here:

• Our remit
• How we audit
• Our organisation

Technical assistive devices

The Swedish National Audit Office does not provide any technical assistive devices to enable the general public to search and access official documents themselves.

Confidentiality at the Swedish National Audit Office

Our extensive audit mandate gives us the right to access all information, including confidential information, necessary for our audit activities. Under Chapter 11, Section 1 of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act, we must apply the same secrecy provisions applied by the government agencies we audit. This means that almost all the secrecy provisions of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act may become applicable.

Here are some of the secrecy provisions that we often apply:

• Chapter 11, Section 1 (provisions on the transfer of secrecy, supervision and audit)
• Chapter 15, Section 1 (Secrecy relating to foreign affairs)
• Chapter 15, Section 2 (Secrecy relating to defence matters)
• Chapter 18, Section 8 (Security and surveillance measures)
• Chapter 18, Section 9 (Cipher, code, etc.)
• Chapter 18, Section 13 (Risk and vulnerability analyses, etc.)
• Chapter 19, Section 1 (Business and operational circumstances)
• Chapter 19, Section 3 (Procurement, etc.)
• Chapter 21, Section 5 (Safety of aliens in certain cases)
• Chapter 21, Section 7 (Processing in breach of data protection provisions)
• Chapter 24, Section 8 (Statistics)
• Chapter 30, Section 15 (Individual recipient of government grants)
• Chapter 30, Sections 23 and 23 b (Other supervision, etc., exercised by central government agencies)
• Chapter 31, Sections 16–18 (Individuals’ business relationships with government agencies, etc.)
• Chapter 32, Section 6 (Notifications of holdings of financial instruments)
• Chapter 39, Sections 1–3 (Personnel management activities of the government agency at which the personnel are employed)

Access to official documents is limited due to culling

The Swedish National Audit Office does not adhere to the National Archives’ regulations on culling, as the authority does not fall under the supervision of the National Archives Authority. Instead, we have our own regulations for culling. These regulations are listed below.

• Internal regulation on the culling of documents in the Swedish National Audit Office’s auditing activities
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2022-0573)
• Internal regulation on the culling of documents in the Swedish National Audit Office’s international activities
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2024-1086)
• Internal regulation on the culling of documents related to procurement
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2019-1437)
• Internal regulation on the culling of documents related to payroll and personnel administration
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2019-1443)
• Internal regulation on documents related to recruitment
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2018-0818)
• Internal regulation on the culling of documents of obvious minor importance and generic documents for control, support and core activities
  (ref. no. 1.1.2-2023-0586)

The application of these regulations is set out in the Swedish National Audit Office’s instructions for handling official documents or in special decisions on culling.

Data that we collect regularly

• Government agencies’ annual reports (financial audit)
• Elements of accounting data from certain government agencies (financial audit)
• Information from government agencies under audit that is needed for our audits, such as memorandums, reports and other documentation describing government agencies’ operations that is normally classified as official documents at the audited agency (performance audit).

Data we provide regularly

• The Swedish National Audit Office’s annual reports to the Riksdag, such as our Annual Report, Annual Report of the Auditor General and Follow-up Report
• Consultation responses
• Performance audit reports from the Performance Audit Department to the Riksdag and the Government
• Auditor’s reports, audit reports and other reports from the Financial Audit Department are submitted in some cases to the Riksdag and in other cases to the Government
• Information about our development cooperation activities for the OpenAid information service.

Sale of personal data

The Swedish National Audit Office does not sell personal data.