Special Audits Reports

 Under COA Resolution No. 2008-012 dated October 10, 2008, the Management Services was renamed Special Audits Office to expand its services to include:

    1. Conduct of Value-For-Money audits and related operations review activities.

    2. Provide management consultancy services to other government agencies in such areas as:

      • Organization
      • Strategy Formulation
      • Financial Feasibility
      • Strategic Planning
      • Other related areas

    3. Coordinate with all offices of the Commission for the purpose of establishing feedback mechanisms on implemented innovations.

    4. Formulate recommendations to the Chairman on the adoption of the most appropriate systems for the enhancement of operations.

    5. Perform such other functions as may be assigned.

Recently, the Office is assigned to conduct Rate and Levy audits.

The functions:

     Conduct of Value-For-Money (VFM) Audit

This audit is concerned with the review of management efficiency with the end in view of eliminating waste and promoting efficient use of public funds and resources and the ascertainment of the agency’s effectiveness by determining whether desired results have been achieved and programs have accomplished their purposes and objectives.

      Approaches in the conduct of VFM audits

       Agency-based approach

An audit of a particular program, project or activity of a selected agency.

       Government-wide and Sectoral Performance Audits

Government-wide and Sectoral Performance Audits are new approaches adopted by the Commission under COA Resolution No. 98-005 dated March 3, 1998. While these types of audits were introduced in 1998, it was only in 2002 that these approaches were operationalized under the COA-UNDP AusAID Project entitled "Enhancing the Public Accountability Programme of the Philippine Commission on Audit".

Government-wide audit is the simultaneous examination of a management function or activity in a number of government agencies which is expected to provide:

        • basic data for comparing practices and operations between and among government agencies in the same sector or with the whole government;

        • collated data of practices in various government agencies that could show the magnitude or insignificance of deficiencies in the system;

        • audit criteria which are supported by best practices;

        • awareness on the part of auditors and the auditees of how their agency compares with other government agencies in terms of objectives, functions, operations, internal and administrative controls, and output; and

        • opportunities to the audited agency for benchmarking with other government agencies.

On the other hand, the Sectoral Audit refers to an audit of programs or activities that are delivered by more than one government agency and is expected to provide:

      • an overall picture of how various segments of a program are implemented and possibly lead to the identification of areas where improvements can be introduced;

      • audit criteria or benchmark for future audits of government programs by various government agencies;

      • basis for auditors to realize that program difficulties may not lie with a single agency but possibly with the way the agencies involved in the program work together;

      • an arena for airing program difficulties by audited agencies; and

      • opportunity for making changes in the program, if necessary.