The National Audit Office of Finland has overhauled its strategy and management system. The NAOF is now an organisation with four effectiveness areas. The aim of the overhaul is to ensure wider societal effectiveness, a management model in which consideration is given to the rapid changes in the operating environment, agile processes and competence development in a broad range of different fields.

Supreme Audit Institutions from Europe and Asia gathered last week in Jerusalem to celebrate the third joint conference between EUROSAI and ASOSAI, the European and Asian Organisations of Supreme Audit Institutions. This year’s conference theme was Emerging Issues and Emergency Situations. The National Audit Office of Finland was also present and contributed to both the plenary sessions and workshops.

On the basis of the NAOF’s annual report, the Parliament Audit Committee highlighted the need to improve risk management of central government without delay.

Some of the central government’s risks are in danger of remaining unidentified as the number of actors increases. Today, the National Audit Office of Finland (NAOF) publishes its annual report in which it presents to Parliament its key observations on central government finances and governance.

NAOF assesses that the Government is now better placed to achieve the targets that it has set for the parliamentary term. According to economic forecasts, most of the targets for general government finances set by the Government may now be achieved as the Finnish economy is picking up after a long period of slow growth.

According to a recent NAOF survey, the economic forecasts prepared by the Ministry of Finance, which are used as a basis for the state budget, give the most accurate picture of future economic trends. Their accuracy was on a par with those produced by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (Etla). The review was contained in the latest assessment carried out by Fiscal Policy Evaluation, which covered the Ministry of Finance's economic forecasts.

Digitalisation and customer orientation are partially achieved in the case of services directed to new entrepreneurs. However, more attention should be paid to ensuring that the services genuinely consider the customer’s needs.

The audit and monitoring activities of the National Audit Office are based on the audit plan. The plan is based on the National Audit Office’s own operating environment analyses and macroeconomic risk analyses of central government finances.

Most parties comply with the regulations on funding in the Act on Political Parties, but there is room for improvement in the case of some procedures. The National Audit Office annually audits political party funding, reviewing financial statements and accounting of the audited entities from a period of several years. The purpose is to verify that the statutory funding disclosures are submitted correctly, comprehensively and at the right time to the public electronic party funding register maintained by the NAOF. The NAOF also audits the state subsidies of political parties represented in Parliament (also called party subsidies).

According to its new strategy, the National Audit Office of Finland (NAOF) will focus on phenomenon-based audit work. One of our impact areas is A Safe, Healthy and Affluent Society. We share the same goal with the central government actors and stakeholders: we want that the state economy has a sustainable foundation and is managed effectively and in compliance with regulations even in the long term. In this blog series, we deal with the changes taking place in audit work and the operational environment from the perspective of the NAOF’s new strategy.

The significance of the National Audit Office of Finland (NAOF) as the independent supervisor of fiscal policy is important for the functioning of the Finnish society. The task of the NAOF is to ensure the appropriate use of state funds and thus help to maintain the accountability and trustworthiness of central government. This guest blog examines the role of the NAOF in building trust. The guest bloggers are persons outside the National Audit Office who have views and experience of the activities of the agency. Any views presented in the blog are personal opinions of the guest bloggers.

The new strategy of the National Audit Office will shift our focus on phenomenon-based activities. This means that we will no longer review our operations through the different audit types or monitoring functions but from the perspective of social and economic phenomena. Our work will be harnessed to support different phenomenon-based areas. In this blog series, we discuss the changes occurring in the audit operations of the National Audit Office of Finland and our operating environment from the perspective of our renewed strategy.