The Symposium of the United Nations and INTOSAI - International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions, gathered 130 representatives from Supreme Audit Institutions from all over the world. They debated on how to organise cooperation between SAIs and citizens so that to make it more effective and to improve public accountability. During the three thematic sessions of the Symposium, the participants considered the issues of communication between SAIs and citizens, forms of citizen participation in government auditing, and values and benefits of cooperation between SAIs, parliaments and citizens.
The speech delivered by President of the NIK Jacek Jezierski, entitled Communication between SAIs and citizens to improve public accountability, opened the first thematic session dedicated to communication with the public, and aroused great interest of the participants. During the discussion that followed the session, representatives of other SAIs addressed President Jezierski with several questions, related, among others, to relations with the media and ways of using citizens’ opinions in selection of audit subjects. One of the main theses of Jacek Jezierski’s speech, which emphasises correlation between successful cooperation and effective communication, was included in the conclusions and recommendations elaborated as a result of the Symposium, addressed to all Supreme Audit Institutions.
All the three sessions were followed by lively discussions, revolving, for instance, around the issues related to civil society and its participation in governing the state, which is possible, among others, thanks to information provided by SAIs. The participants of the Symposium had also different opinions on whether SAIs should, apart from performing audits included in their annual plans, audit ”topical” issues, directly related to citizens’ everyday problems. The debate on the necessity and involvement of SAIs in contacts with the media also turned out to be very heated. Moreover, the discussions held during the Symposium proved that problems and opinions of SAIs vary from region to region. INTOSAI Secretary General Dr. Josef Moser in the closing speech remarked that he had not witnessed such animated discussions for many years.
Joint symposia of the United Nations and INTOSAI are organised every two years and they are always held in Vienna. The previous 2009 Symposium was dedicated to corruption.
