The Commission on Audit (COA) thrives in a culture of excellence and in order to ensure that its services are at par with the international audit community, the Commission adopted the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) to measure the Commission’s performance through COA Resolution No. 2017-023 on 21 December 2017.

The SAI PMF is an international framework for self, peer, or external assessment of a SAI’s performance against the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions and other established international good practices. It is applicable to all types of SAIs regardless of organizational model, mandate, national context and development level.

The SAI PMF was adopted by the INTOSAI during the XXII Congress held in December 2016 in Abu Dhabi. However, a key principle of the framework is that the assessment is voluntary, and that it is the Head of the SAI that makes all key decisions about the assessment.

“Adopting this framework is important for us to gauge our performance of our audit and non-audit functions and the strength of our legal mandates and environment. It will also help us identify areas that we need to improve on and accordingly adjust our capacity-building programs,” said COA Chairperson Michael G. Aguinaldo.

“By showing our commitment to adhere to the highest international standards, we are also contributing to better quality public services that will ultimately benefit society,” added the Chairperson.

The framework consists of a set of 25 indicators (of two to four dimensions each) for measuring SAI performance against international good practice in six domains: Independence and Legal Framework; Internal Governance and Ethics; Audit Quality and Reporting; Financial Management, Assets and Support Structures; Human Resources and Training; and Communication and Stakeholder Management.

Each indicator provides for a five point scale to measure performance against a key area with a set of guidelines for each evidence-based score. There is no aggregated score for the entire SAI because all indicators are not equally important and their relative importance varies for each SAI but an overall analysis of the performance of the SAI will be provided in the narrative Performance Report.

Meanwhile, the Inter-agency Task Force on the Harmonization of National Government Performance Monitoring, Information and Reporting Systems (Administrative Order No. 25 series of 2001) has approved the INTOSAI SAI PMF as equivalent to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001-aligned Quality Management System (QMS) to better capture the conduct of public sector audit by the COA than the generic QMS framework provided by the ISO standards.

The Commission has already conducted two batches of orientation and briefing on the SAI PMF: the first on 20 December 2017 joined by 70 COA officials, auditors and staff and on 21 December 2017 with 62 COA officials and personnel in attendance.