Peer reviews contribute to increasing the quality of SAIs’ activities. The NIK will be peer reviewed by European SAIs for the third time. What are the main objectives of such an exercise? First of all, it is meant to ensure the compliance of the NIK’s activity with European auditing standards and to increase the transparency of its work. At the same time, the NIK hopes to expand its knowledge thanks to experiences and tools used in other countries.
Peer review
On 24-25 November 2011 in Warsaw, a meeting was held related to the planned peer review between President of the NIK Jacek Jezierski and Head of the Danish Rigsrevisionen Henrik Otbo, as well as experts from the two SAIs. During the meeting, the objectives, scope, schedule, criteria and conditions of the peer review were discussed. The NIK would like the peer review to focus on its audit process, but other areas, such as those related to audit strategy and priorities, attitude to audit planning, audit procedures, reporting and post audit activities will also be reviewed.
This is not going to be the first peer review of the NIK. In 2000, the NIK was reviewed by SIGMA experts with regard to compliance with EU standards. Then, in 2006 a peer review of the NIK was conducted by the SAI of Denmark. Experts from the NIK, in turn, have participated in peer reviewing teams twice. They have reviewed the activity of the Danish Rigsrevisionen and the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic.
During the visit to Warsaw, the President of the Danish SAI was officially handed in by the President of the NIK the Auditor’s Assistant application (Polish: Pomocnik Kontrolera) which supports auditors’ work with regard to its analytical and statistical aspects. Danish auditors are very much interested in applying this IT tool in their audit activity.
