Federal Report Released on
Single-Audit Quality

Provided by AICPA
Pursuit, December 2007

A federal study on the quality of audits performed under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-133, was issued June 22, 2007. The Report on the National Single Audit Sampling Project, was issued by the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE).
The study had two goals:

• Determine the quality of single audits and establish a statistically based measure of audit quality
• Recommend changes in single-audit requirements, standards, and procedures to improve quality
  

The 208 reviewed audits were randomly selected from about 38,000 of those conducted during 2002-2003. The report on this sampling of audits shows that improvements are needed in many areas.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) takes the results and recommendations of the report seriously, and shares the commitment of involved federal agencies to improve the quality of single audits. Because many of the audit reviews were performed four to five years ago, the AICPA is confident that their endeavors over the last several years—such as the launch of the Governmental Audit Quality Center (GAQC) in 2004—have begun to address some of the issues raised in
the report.

GAQC will form a special task force to study the PCIE report findings and recommendations. The GAQC will also work with the OMB, various Inspectors General, and other interested parties to provide additional guidance to help achieve the highest quality standards in governmental auditing.

* To read the complete PCIE Report, visit
http://www.ignet.gov/pande/audit/NatSamProjRptFINAL2.pdf.