| Abstract [eng] |
In these days public procurement gains more and more popularity in various areas of public and private sectors. Each year the amount of public procurement in Lithuania reaches around 10 thousand of purchases. However, due to limited human resources the Public Procurement Office and other external institutions can verify only a small part of procurement. Considering the limited resources and rather large number of organizations proceeding the public procurement, contracting authorities have also to verify procurements themselves, this way preventing the chance of fraud and violations. In order to identify the operational weak points it is necessary to apply an internal audit as a qualitative assessment for the desired results. The amount of violations in procurement can be effectively reduced and efficiency of procedures can be improved by the application of internal audit, as a first in row safety and control feature, thus enhancing the reputation of public sector. The aim of this master thesis is to examine internal audit quality of the public sector, concentrating on public procurement and provide recommendations for improving the audit. Thus, thesis object is quality of internal audit in public procurement. The main results. The audit of high quality can help to obtain the useful information, that assists optimizing the procedures in public organization, and justify its expectations in the society. However, it is rather complicated to define the concept of the quality of audit itself due to the factors that influence the quality and audit. In summary, it can be said that the internal audit quality - a set of internal and external characteristics, comprising auditor competence, objectivity and compliance with legislation, the level of audit reports, recommendations impact and management professionalism. In order to identify the most influential elements of the internal audit quality in public procurement, it was necessary to test them to pass the hypotheses. These hypotheses included 3 E model‘s three components: economy, efficiency, effectiveness, which were detailed in the following factors: physical, human resources, management of tasks, time management, promotion, management measures and cooperation between the departments of importance. The main hypothesis included the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the combined influence of the procurement audit quality. The results have shown that the most important factors for the economical, efficient and effective procurement audit are supply of computer software, auditors' knowledge, the number of auditors, time management, and employees’ (auditor‘s) financial promotion. Data analysis has shown that the factors such as employment provision of information technology equipment, training for competence gaining, manager‘s organizing the tasks, the audit plan execution, non-financial promotion, management measures and cooperation between departments do not make or does a marginal impact on the audit quality of public procurement. The quality of the audit in public procurement is mostly influenced by the computer software provided to auditor, sufficient level of auditor’s knowledge, adequate number of auditors for workload in office, appropriate management of timing the tasks and sufficient individual financial incentive. The identification of these factors can serve with good use as additional measure for high-end management. According to surveys results, the auditors are frequently exposed to stressful microclimate and experience the feeling of excess bureaucratic procedures and inadequacy of their managers’ professionalism. It is advisable for the leadership to take account for these factors which directly affect the quality of auditors’ work. The recommendations based on improving the level of these specific factors could lead to effective and efficient results. Finally, this study with its findings could be useful for designing similar research in public sector. |
