Events

The Auditor General presented a paper at the UCCI conference on Leadership, Governance and Empowerment in the Caribbean in March 2011  on Effective Public Sector Governance and How External Public Auditing Supports It

This paper examines the role of external independent public sector audit in supporting effective or good governance in the public sector. It considers what is meant by good governance and the principles that underpin it. It identifies certain principles, accountability and transparency, common across various definitions of good governance and discusses how a robust external public audit regime, through the provision of independent objective based information, is an important element in a democratic society to enable the legislature to effectively hold government and its related public entities to account for how they have used public resources. It discusses why the legislature needs the support of external independent public audit to carry out its scrutiny role effectively, and the type of work that an external public sector auditor requires to carry out to effectively provide relevant and sufficient objective based information. It goes onto to consider the key requirements of an external public sector audit regime, including independence, legal mandate, public reporting and capacity, if it is to be effective in carrying out its role of supporting effective scrutiny by the legislature. It considers the example of accountability and the external public sector audit regime in the Cayman Islands, examining the framework in place, how it has operated and how that has affected accountability and governance in the Cayman Islands. Finally, in this context it considers impediments that have, or potentially could, affect the external public audit regime and thus governance in the Cayman Islands, and more widely in the Caribbean Region.