Cooperation with the Audit Chamber of Armenia
The Swedish National Audit Office cooperates with the Audit Chamber of Armenia to help them improve their work. We train auditors and help them develop their working methods and communication skills. Our support enables them to perform better audits and write clearer reports.
Focus areas
Our cooperation covers performance audit, communication and how the authority reaches its target groups.
Improving the quality of audit findings
We help the Audit Chamber of Armenia to build up and establish performance auditing, which is a new type of audit for the authority.
We train auditors and help the authority to develop its working methods to conduct its auditing soundly from start to finish. We provide support in planning, report writing and address the importance of established processes.
We contribute knowledge of how to plan, implement, communicate and follow up the audit findings. Our cooperation also involves efforts to strengthen knowledge and the ability to apply different forms of auditing methods.
We provide active support to project groups during ongoing audits. We also support the development of a group including both managers and employees who are responsible for quality control of the audits.
Writing concise, useful reports
We work to bolster communication and the ability to reach out to the authority’s target groups. It is a matter of identifying the authority’s priorities to enable planning and carrying out high-quality communication.
To strengthen external communication, we hold training courses on how auditors can write good reports that are clear and easy to read. The authority also receives our support in developing the skill of reaching important readers and recipients of their audits. The support may address how the country’s parliament, government and government agencies take delivery of and use the reports to implement changes, and how journalists can use the audit findings when reporting on how the central government administration works.
Outcomes
The cooperation with the Audit Chamber of Armenia has generated numerous results, including:
- The Audit Chamber of Armenia has taken clear steps towards the project’s main objective of introducing performance auditing.
- The level of knowledge regarding performance audit has been anchored at several levels in the organisation.
- The authority’s communication skills and understanding of how to reach out to different stakeholders have improved.
- Knowledge of how to write user-friendly reports has increased.
Circumstances and challenges
The Audit Chamber of Armenia faces various challenges, such as
- The authority has legal requirements to audit more often than international standards require. This requirement is time-consuming and costly and the authority is trying to amend the law.
- The independence of the authority is limited by virtue of the fact that the government approves the budget.
- The legislation on access to information from audit subjects is unclear and can be interpreted in different ways.The authority does not decide for itself how and who they recruit and promote, which affects its ability to appoint personnel according to their competence.