MOOC: Introduction to environmental auditing in the public sector

4.2. Preparing a report

Requirements for audit report

The audit report must provide well-founded, objective and complete information, analysis and assessments that add value for decision-makers and stakeholders. Expectations for an audit report are generally very high and mistakes therefore need to be avoided.

The report also needs to be convincing and persuasively presented, following the discovered facts. At the same, it must be objective and balanced in content and tone. In order to increase the impact of the audit report, it needs to be written clearly and in an easy-to-read manner. The report also needs to be concise; no longer than necessary to convey and support the message.

An audit report must always be accurate, true, comprehensive and complete, containing all of the relevant information and arguments to support the audit message.

Criterion-condition-cause-effect

To structure the paragraphs in an audit report, it is useful to follow a criterion-condition-cause-effect structure. Below is an example of using a table to analyse results and eventually develop a chapter for a report.

Step 1: Analyse the findings and sort the criteria, conditions, cause and final effect in a table, thus organising the statements in a logical order. It is often not easy to understand whether a finding is a cause or a final effect. The reason for this is that final effect may be a cause for the next condition. All of these relations between the findings need to be analysed with care.

Step 2: Extract the statements from the table and arrange them as a bullet-point list. If the sequence of statements does not flow logically, you will need to return to the table. Maybe you did not put the condition, cause and effect in the right cells.

The Water Management Plan should be a programme of measures which includes activities for achieving a good water status.
Pollution in X River has steadily increased since 2000.
There is a lack of adequate measures in the Management Plan. The activities for achieving the good status of X River only cover the fisheries sector.
If no measures are taken to control pollution, eutrophication levels will continue to increase and economically relevant fish stocks will be depleted.

Step 3: It is easy to develop a paragraph from the bullet-point list.

The Water Management Plan should be a programme of measures which includes activities for achieving a good water status. Pollution in X River has steadily increased since 2000. In the evaluation of the SAI, this is the result of a lack of adequate measures in the Management Plan. The activities for achieving the good status of X River only cover the fisheries sector. If no measures are taken to control pollution, eutrophication levels will continue to increase and economically relevant fish stocks will be depleted.

This method has proven useful for the initial analysis of findings as it is minimal and does not demand too much time or effort, being a short text. Of course, you may rewrite the paragraph and add examples or further reasoning to the final text.

By considering criteria, conditions, causes and effects while analysing audit findings, an auditor will end up writing a logically constructed report that is likely to have greater impact.

In order to increase the impact of environmental audits, the audit report should answer the following questions:

Source: ‘How to increase the impact of environmental performance audits’ (J. Reed, J. Cinq-Mars, International Journal of Government Auditing, April 2014)

Recommendations

The auditor’s conclusions and recommendations are important aspects of an audit and, where appropriate, are written as a guide for action.

Recommendations should be linked to the audit objectives, findings and conclusions. Besides being constructive and realistic, they should address the problems identified by the audit. The likelihood of having an impact is greater if recommendations are discussed with the auditee.

Effective recommendations are:

It is a good idea to accompany a recommendation with a description of the desirable situation, thus explaining the need for change.

Example of the recommendation:

Recommendation for the Environmental Agency (responsible for implementing Water Management Plans): More measures should be taken to improve the status of X River. More attention should be paid to control pollution from agriculture (both diffuse and point sources) and municipal and industrial wastewater treatment.