The Heads of the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Baltic and Nordic countries meet annually to share knowledge and experience and to strengthen cooperation among their organisations. The origins of these meetings date back to 1994 when the SAIs of the Baltic states signed an agreement which started their further collaboration. In the second half of the 1990s., the SAIs of the Nordic countries joined the Baltic group. The Supreme Audit Office of Poland started to participate in the meetings in 2004. At present, the Heads of the eight following states gather every year: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Sweden.
This year’s meeting was dedicated to three topics: environmental auditing, audits of national parks and audits related to EU matters. The NIK was the moderator of the session on auditing of national parks. President of the NIK Jacek Jezierski depicted the specifics of the functioning of national parks in Poland and presented the results of several NIK’s audits in the field. The last of these audits was completed in 2010. It was aimed at verifying how Polish national parks deal with the management of State lands. At the meeting in Oslo, a proposal was presented to conduct an international audit on natural protected areas in the coming years. The majority of the SAIs that participated in the meeting showed interest in the idea.
One of the meeting sessions was dedicated to new developments in individual SAIs. President of the NIK Jacek Jezierski discussed the NIK’s communication policy, comprising such issues as topicality of audit reports and their language, the NIK’s new website, communication with employees and the Mobile Auditor programme. The next meeting of the Heads of the Baltic and Nordic countries will be organised in 2013 in Denmark.
