This year’s meeting, hosted by the SAI of Latvia, gathered representatives of the SAIs of eight countries. Although each of the participating SAIs operates in different conditions, their standards in the area of methodology and practices are similar. The meeting was a great opportunity to exchange experiences and it allowed for an interesting discussion.
The conference was divided into three thematic sessions. The first session concerned the application of data processing systems in the auditing process. The SAIs of Poland, Finland, Denmark and Latvia shared their experiences in the field with other participants. The NIK presented its experiences in the use of IT tools for audit support. These tools have become an important element of auditing. They need further improvement and development, but have already proved to be indispensable and many audits could not be conducted without them.
The second session concerned the specificity of audits in companies owned by the state or self-governments. The representatives of the SAIs of Norway, Estonia and Sweden shared their experiences in this area with other participants in the meeting.
The third session was dedicated to the impact of the economic slowdown on the audit planning process. It turns out that economic conditions to a large extent affect the topics of future audits, and sometimes they even make it necessary to modify the audit plans already adopted.
The changing legal, economic and social conditions naturally influence the activity of SAIs. Annual meetings of the SAIs of the Baltic and Nordic States allow their participants to take advantage of experiences of their partners, so that they can be better prepared for facing new challenges and problems.
