The peer review, led by the Polish Supreme Audit Office, was a part of the programme to strengthen the external audit function for NATO. From September to December, at the request of the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN), a special team of Polish and Spanish auditors looked into the quality of audit over the NATO finance. The documentation provided by the NATO auditor was screened and selected reports were analysed and compared against the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions.
According to NIK and the Court of Auditors of the Kingdom of Spain, the financial audit in NATO is appropriate and reliable. The NATO audit work is performed efficiently and effectively. The four-month peer review also revealed several possible improvement areas in the work of IBAN.
On 16 December 2014, the report produced by the Polish and Spanish team was presented to the IBAN Chairman by the Presidents of the SAIs who made the review. The handover ceremony took place in the NATO headquarters in the presence of the Deputy Secretary General of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Permanent Representatives of Poland and Spain at NATO. NIK was represented by its President Krzysztof Kwiatkowski and the leader of the peer review team, Wiesław Kurzyca.
Pursuant to the peer review agreement, the report will remain in the hands of IBAN. Having got familiar with its findings, the IBAN Chairman will send it to the North-Atlantic Council, which may decide to make it publicly available.
See also: NIK will check how NATO is audited >>
IBAN comprises six members who oversee the conduct of audits by a team of approx. twenty professional auditors. IBAN members are appointed by the North-Atlantic Council which is the only body before which they account for their audits. At the moment IBAN includes representatives of the Czech Republic, Greece, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. IBAN members are appointed for 4-year terms, without the possibility of extending the mandate. One of IBAN members appointed by the North-Atlantic Council acts as IBAN's Chair for a 2-year term. From 2006 to 2010, Poland had its representative in IBAN who was the Board’s Chair in the years 2007-2009.
