Kosovo

The evaluation shows that the Swedish NAO’s support has contributed to a more well-functioning process within performance audit. An update of the audit manual has established a clear process that has been accepted among the auditors, according to interviewed employees at the SAI of Kosovo. Together with the Swedish NAO, the SAI of Kosovo has established a certification system within performance audit. Since the introduction of the system in 2019, 18 auditors have been certified through training and subsequent tests, while also participating in an audit from planning to final report. According to the interviewed employees, this has led to increased self-confidence among the certified auditors and greater ability to work independently.

According to the evaluation, managers’ professional competence in controlling and supporting the audits through the audit process has increased. During the cooperation project, the managers have participated in the Swedish NAO’s training programmes, which has helped to strengthen their role as reviewers and supervisors for audits. This, in turn, has increased the SAI’s awareness of quality control and led the SAI to decide on mandatory quality control for all performance audits. However, quality control is still at the development stage and the process of carrying out quality control differs between managers, leading to varying quality of performance audit reports.

However, performance audit reports have generally become more readable and there is a greater awareness among managers and auditors about the benefits of more analytical and readable reports. Cooperation with the Swedish NAO has contributed to this change. The improvements are partly due to the fact that employees at the SAI have learned how to use more normative and open questions that in turn give a greater depth of analysis. Employees interviewed say that the reports have generally become more structured, but that there is room for further improvement.

The results were also confirmed in the SAI report International Integration of the NAO, published in 2020. This shows that the Swedish NAO’s support has contributed to sustainable results and that this is the largest development project carried out at the SAI.

According to the evaluation, the cooperation between the SAI of Kosovo and the Swedish NAO has contributed to a significant improvement in strategic planning. For example, our support has resulted in the SAI now having the capacity to independently develop strategic plans. Our support has meant that they now have the capacity to produce strategic plans without support. Among other things, the SAI has focused on performance audit and audits of state-owned companies.

The evaluation also shows that the Swedish NAO’s support has contributed to the development of the audit plan. It is now more structured and the SAI has set up a working group to work on it. However, further development of both the plan and the process is required to reach international standards. There is also still a lack of a clear link between the audit plan and the strategic plan.

According to the evaluation, the cooperation has contributed to strengthening the leadership role at different levels. The top managers at the SAI state that they have gained new perspectives and become better at communicating and providing feedback. In this way, the team spirit has been strengthened and the relationship between employees and top managers has improved. Like the top managers, middle managers have become stronger leaders and they have gained more knowledge of specific leadership tools. Middle managers are more responsive to their employees. Employees interviewed also believe that middle managers have gained greater self-awareness and become more open to development and better at leading their teams. One of the top managers believes that middle managers see to a greater extent what should be prioritised in the workplace and how the teams should work to achieve desired results.

The Swedish NAO’s support has contributed to some improvement when it comes to completing assignments on time. This is mainly due to a better audit process but also to a clearer and more developed leadership including managers’ coordination and communication. The project only managed one activity for the team leaders, though another one was planned. Interviewed experts at the Swedish NAO believe that the SAI has prioritised other development efforts and therefore they are not able to develop all planned leadership areas.