EUROSAI. Magazine N21 - 2015

EUROPEAN ORGANISATION OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS REPORTS OF EUROSAI GOAL TEAMS, WORKING GROUPS, TASK FORCE AND MONITORING COMMITTEE 31 www.eurosai.org · N.º 21 - 2015 The EUROSAI IT Working Group (WGIT) was established in 2002 at the 5th EUROSAI Congress in Moscow, Russia. The chairmanship of the group was entrusted then to the Court of Audit of the Netherlands. After six years, at the 7 th EUROSAI Congress in 2008 in Kraków, Poland, the chairmanship was taken over by the Swiss Federal Audit Office and subsequently, in 2014 at the 9 th EUROSAI Congress in The Hague it was handed over to Supreme Audit Office of Poland - NIK. Shortly afterwards the 10th meeting of the EUROSAI IT Working Group, chaired by Mr Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, President of NIK, was held on July 2015 in Warsaw, at the headquarters of NIK. It was an important opportunity for best practice sharing and international networking in the field of IT. The 24 th meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit, chaired by SAI of India, was held in NIK one day before. Therefore two Groups exchanged experiences in the area of IT audits, IT tools used in audits as well as auditing of government accounts and operations. Two joint events for effective networking took place. Presently, the EUROSAI IT working Group has 36 member SAIs - 35 countries and the European Court of Auditors. It is a resilient organization that delivers real value for its members in the field of IT. The aim of this article is to bring the matter to readers the achievements of the Group as well as the activities it has made since mid-2014 by the end of 2015 as summarized at the meeting described above. The activity of the EUROSAI IT Working Group is focused on the following three areas: Capacity Building, Professional Standards and Knowledge Sharing. The above division reflects the main goals of the EUROSAI Strategic Plan for 2011 – 2017. The WGITA’s activities are carried out in accordance with six main objectives: 1. Stimulate vision development, which means that the WGIT continuously strives to adjust existing IT related standards, guidelines and best practices to changing realities of the audit environment. 2. Support to the IT ISSAIs. The EUROSAI IT Working Group comments on the proposals and afterwards gives feedback on quality and usefulness of the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions. 3. Facilitate the exchange of experience and expertise, which are realised mainly through the EUROSAI IT Working Group projects: “Control Space of e-Government” and “Information System to support the Audit Process”. The other projects, ITSA and ITASA focus on auto-reflection by SAIs with moderation by external experts. Co- operation with the INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit is being intensified especially in professional standards area. Additionally, the group initiated the co-operation with the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) regarding the IT Audit Handbook. 4. Promote cooperation in the design of IT related audits. One of the principal aims of the ‘Control Space of e-Government’ project is providing audit designers with results of similar audits carried out by other SAIs, with lists of the most interesting findings and with ready to use risk questions. 5. Promote concurrent, joint or coordinated audits. A series of concurrent, joint or coordinated audits has been initiated in the fourth work period (2011 – 2014) by WGIT and will be continued. The audit subjects will reflect the most up-to-date challenges. EUROSAI WORKING GROUP ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES The SAI of Poland Chair of the EUROSAI Working Group on Information Technologies