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International relations

The Swedish NAO has an extensive cooperation with different international organizations and participates in many networks in the auditing area. Each year the Swedish NAO receives visits from several international delegations, primarily from other countries' Supreme Audit Institutions or parliaments. The Swedish NAO also respond to a large number of queries and surveys from other SAIs (Supreme Audit Institutions), international organizations, scientists etc.

70th meeting of the INTOSAI Governing Board, November 2017.

70th meeting of the INTOSAI Governing Board, November 2017.

INTOSAI

The Swedish National Audit Office is a member of INTOSAI – the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions – which is a global organization for national audit institutions. The organization has about 190 members and has a general secretariat that is hosted by the SAI of Austria.

INTOSAI's main objective is to create a forum for its members for the exchange of knowledge and experience, as well as draw upon each other's conclusions and insights.

The highest decision-making organ of INTOSAI is the International Congress of Supreme Audit Institutions, INCOSAI, which gather its members once every three years. INTOSAI's board, the Governing Board, is responsible for leadership and continuity of INTOSAI between the congresses. The Board has 21 members which meet once a year.

INTOSAI has seven regional organisations. The Swedish NAO belongs to the European regional organization of EUROSAI.

Capacity development within INTOSAI

The INTOSAI main committee for capacity development (Capacity Building Committee - CBC) is chaired by the South African SAI together with the Swedish National Audit Office as Vice Chair. The CBC is the INTOSAI advocate for and custodian of SAI capacity development and facilitate initiatives in support of SAIs and regions building their capacities and enhancing their capabilities. This can include professionalization, peer reviews, various forms of cooperation in audits and development of tools guidance to strengthen the capacity and integrity of SAIs.

The CBC works closely with INTOSAI's other main committees, regional organizations and the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), a Norwegian foundation that supports audit authorities.

Read more about the CBC

Standard setting work in INTOSAI

Forum for INTOSAI Professional Pronouncements (FIPP)

In 2015 INTOSAI created a forum with the purpose of improving the structure of INTOSAI standards and guidelines. The forum consists of one chair and 15 members from different SAIs and INTOSAI organizations, and promotes quality and consistency in INTOSAI standards and guidelines. The Swedish NAO has one representative in the forum.

INTOSAI Framework for Professional Pronouncements (IFPP)

At the 2016 congress, INTOSAI approved a new structure for its standards and guidelines. Until 2022, existing documents will be edited to fit the new structure with the help of FIPP and INTOSAI's standards setting bodies, such as the Financial Audit and Accounting Subcommittee (FAAS), Performance Audit Subcommittee (PAS) and Compliance Audit Subcommittee (CAS) in the Professional Standards Committee (PSC).

Read more about standards

Read more about standard setting work

EUROSAI

EUROSAI is one of INTOSAI's regional working groups and consists of 49 European member SAI:s and the European Court of Auditors.

In their strategic plan for 2017-2023, EUROSAI has defined two strategic goals:

  1. Supporting effective, innovative and relevant audits by promoting and brokering professional cooperation.
  2. Helping SAIs deal with new opportunities and challenges by supporting and facilitating their institutional capacity development.

The Swedish NAO co-leads the work in strategic goal two, together with the SAI of Poland. The Swedish NAO is also a member of the EUROSAI Working Group on Environmental Audit.

EUROSAI has – just like INTOSAI – a board. The Swedish NAO participates in the EUROSAI congress taking place every three years.

Read more about EUROSAI

Nordic cooperation

The Swedish NAO has a relatively informal cooperation with its sister-organizations in the Nordic countries. The vision for the Nordic cooperation is to make use of each other's competence to develop the individual national SAI. The cooperation is mainly aimed at sharing working experiences and networking.

The Nordic Auditors General meet annually to exchange information and experiences. Their meetings are always prepared by the appointed Nordic contact persons in each SAI.

Between the meetings there is continuous contact between the Nordic countries on various topics. This sometimes leads to parallel audits or common audit projects between the Nordic countries.

Updated: 03 February 2021

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