Is auditing the new evaluation? Can it be? Should it be?

• Date: 13 August 2018
• Published date: 13 August 2018
• Pages: 726-739
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-08-2017-0219
• Author: Jon Pierre,B. Guy Peters,Jenny de Fine Licht
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Is auditing the new evaluation?

Can it be? Should it be?

Jon Pierre

Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

B. Guy Peters

Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA, and

Jenny de Fine Licht

Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to study the changing relationship between auditing and evaluation.

Over the past several years, supreme auditing institutions (SAIs) in a number of advanced democracies have

evolved from conventional auditing institutions to becoming increasingly concerned with assisting policy

change and administrative reform in the public sector; tasks that are traditionally associated with evaluation.

The paper discusses the potential consequences of this developmentfor the SAIs themselves as well as for the

audited and reforming institutions and for policy-making.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper uses qualitative method and draws on the extensive

literature on auditing and evaluation. The analysis has also benefitted from the authors’recent comparative

research on SAIs.

Findings –The findings, summarized in six points, are that the growth of auditing in areas previously

assigned to evaluators, has led to a shortened time perspective; stronger emphasis on the administration of

policies; increased focus on efficiency of the audited entity; greater independence from the evaluated

organizations; a shift in receiver of information toward the legislature and/or the public; and improved

communication.

Practical implications –Evaluation as a professional and scholarly field has developed theories and

advanced methods to assess the effectiveness of public programs. The growth of auditing may thus change

the focus and quality of policy evaluation.

Originality/value –The paper speaks to both scholars and practitioners. To the best of the knowledge a

similar analysis has not been done before.

Keywords Evaluation, Auditing, Public sector efficiency, Supreme auditing institutions

Paper type Research paper

Auditing, evaluation and public management reform

This paper reflects on the developments in the scope, role and impact strategy of auditing in

the public sector over the past several decades and how this development has reshaped

some elements of the policy process. It argues that the increasing value and significance

associated with auditing from the 1980s onwards has placed it in a position in the policy

process previously held by evaluation as an integral stage of that process, possibly to the

detriment of both auditing and evaluation (see Roberts and Pollitt, 1994). The evidence used

will be drawn primarily from advanced western democracies such as the Scandinavian

countries, the USA and the antipodes with which we have the greatest familiarity. That said,

the trends discussed here appear more universal and could be identified in a number of

settings, and we have included some evidence from other settings.

While conventional auditing certainly has an important evaluative component,

evaluation –sustained by a host of literature, scholarly experts and professional

organizations –developed extensive expertise in different types of evaluation which were of

very little interest to auditors. More recently, performance auditing has expanded its agenda

to include policy and regulatory evaluation; areas where conventional auditing expertise is

of only limited help. More specifically, these changes in the cast of institutions responsible

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 31 No. 6, 2018

pp. 726-739

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-08-2017-0219

Received 23 August 2017

Revised 30 December 2017

8 February 2018

Accepted 8 February 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

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