EUROSAI 82 Studies and other articles The results of the analysis were presented via interactive Tableau dashboards on the NAOE website – a first-ever data-intensive review performed and published in such a manner by our office. Data visualizations were complemented by a standard audit report, centred around the observations and conclusions we had made based on the data analysis. Interactive dashboards enable diving into the data - to see subsidies by mediating authority, date and business area. Information about data is as important as data itself The results of the analysis were presented via interactive Tableau dashboards on the NAOE website Procedures of the review were completed by March 2021, nearly a year after its launch. The ideal process had been envisaged as us designing a Tableau dashboard and simply adding new monthly data and publishing it on a running basis for interactive monitoring of the situation. In reality, however, a significant amount of time was spent on solving data-related questions. For example, we had to compromise on our original intent to consider various other aspects in the review due to the poor quality or lack of data (e.g. partial availability of companies’ annual reports). We were also not able to publish the interim results of the analysis, despite being already able to make preliminary conclusions and monitor the situation, since data-related issues complicated the design of the visualizations, and data was simply not mature enough for the prying public eye. All of these challenges were valuable lessons learned and showcase the potential risks associated with realtime continuous auditing. 21https://www.ria.ee/en/state-information-system/x-tee.html The review project provided us with important information about the varying quality as well as the length of the process of obtaining public sector data, helping us to be better prepared for similar projects in the future. Furthermore, we also identified various areas for potential closer cooperation with Statistics Estonia, a governmental agency responsible for producing official statistics. The NAOE is a relatively small institution and does not house a separate dedicated data unit, making collaboration with the governmental data agency an attractive prospect – aided by Statistics Estonia’s competences and access (vital for data imputation and cleansing), we could save a significant amount of time and focus primarily on output and conclusions. It is very likely that, through collaboration with Statistics Estonia, we could have been able to publish and update data visualizations more operatively during our review. This reflection has given an impetus for exploring data analytics related future cooperation avenues, for example, regarding remote data administration possibilities for the NAOE auditors. A silver lining of the otherwise rather challenging pandemic situation is the push towards innovative thinking and problem-solving it has generated within the NAOE. We feel more confident when considering using data from different sources in our work and see merit in reaching out to external partners to support us in the process. Interactive solutions and reconceptualization of the outputs of audits as well as the automation of monitoring and parts of the audit process are certainly keywords set to be at the centre of attention in the coming years. As a concrete development area, real-time connection with the most important public sector databases via the Estonian data exchange layer X-Road21is being worked on, and we hope to see the first positive results on this already in 2022. Interactive solutions and reconceptualization of the outputs of audits are certainly keywords set to be at the centre of attention in the coming years
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