Who Audits the Auditors?

Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, mandate that government audit organizations have an external quality control review assessment (peer review) every three years. To comply with this requirement, our office participates in the peer review program sponsored by the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT). Under this program, NASACT provides a team of qualified auditors from other state audit offices and the federal government to conduct a review of our quality control procedures. The teams are selected by NASACT from a pool of volunteers provided by each state audit organization. The team selected to conduct our peer review examined our quality control procedures to determine whether those procedures were sufficient to ensure that all audits performed by our office were conducted in accordance with professional auditing standards.

Our most recent peer review was completed during the summer of 2022 and covered the one-year period of July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022. The report issued as a result of this review gave our office a peer review rating of pass, which is the highest rating. The report concluded that the system of quality control of the Auditors of Public Accounts during the review period had been suitably designed and was complied with during the period to provide our organization with reasonable assurance of performing and reporting in conformance with GAGAS in all material respects. Our office is also expected to monitor its operations between peer reviews to ensure continuing effectiveness of the quality control system. To that end, we require that an annual internal quality control inspection be conducted to ensure that the control system is working as intended. Therefore, during the summers of 2023 and 2024, two members of our audit staff will be assigned to conduct an internal inspection of our office’s system of quality control covering the one-year periods ending June 30, 2023 and 2024. Our next external peer review, covering the one-year period ending June 30, 2025, should be conducted sometime during the summer of 2025. Our most recent external peer review report is available by clicking on the following link: APA’s External peer review for the period July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022