EUROSAI. Magazine N18 - 2012

> 18 < EUROSAI ACTIVITIES EUROPEAN ORGANISATION OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS www.eurosai.org No. 18 - 2012 significant for state agencies as well as for SAIs. SAIs contribute to the implementation of the PFM, being one of the key players. They take part in the PFM reform in many ways: participating in the formulation and refinement of clear budgetary, financial, accounting, internal controls and related legislation; by auditing PFM reform as a whole or separate parts of PFM system and key issues, sparking national debates on many pressing issues about the management of public funds. 1 . Recent developments have clearly demonstrated the importance of reasonably planned and executed fiscal policy ensured in mid and long term period. Consequently role of the SAIs work have significantly increased from specific audits to the fiscal discipline and fiscal sustainability issues: 1 . 1 . Debt Management—to increase oversight and performance of in executive and operational public. 1 . 2 . Risk management and vulnerability analysis— enforce and encourage risk assessment and management at agency level and PFM level as a whole. 1 . 3 . Improved reporting framework and increased monitoring & control of external audit function of state agencies and financial institutions. 2 . Contribution to PFM reform: 2 . 1 . Legislative initiative by SAI to improve main regulatory PFM framework of the country a comprehensive, clear and implemented legal framework for PFM should be: •  Structured according to the PFM structure in the country. •  With simple and transparent regulations- avoiding redundant bureaucracy. •  Promoting accountability and making the cooperation with the SAO obligatory (e.g. in Hungarian case). 2 . 2 . Performanceaudit by SAI of PFMreformor reform component to identify systemic deficiencies and respond to them in timely manner. 3 . Disseminations of good practices—SAI should identify and disclose not only deficiencies and irregularities found out during the course of audits, but good practices as well, to share knowledge and promote their role as advisor and partner along with evaluator. 4 . Guidelines—existence of guidelines solely does not guarantee that the goals envisaged by the guideline would be achieved, as in the case of Public Debt best practices and ISSAI guidelines that have already existed before the financial crisis . n n There are a number of similarities in the implementation of the PFM within the EUROSAI, as countries aspire to fully implement common guidelines and best practice regarding the public financial management. n