XXV INCOSAI: XXI Session of the Council of Heads of Supreme Audit Institutions of the CIS Member States

As the Secretariat of the Council of Heads of Supreme Audit Institutions of the CIS Member States (hereinafter the CIS SAIs Heads Council), SAI Russia organized the XXI Session of the Council. Scheduled to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the CIS SAIs Heads Council, it was chaired by SAI Uzbekistan.

The session’s subject was Digital transformation in public audit processes: risks, opportunities and innovation approaches.

Heads and representatives of SAI Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were in attendance.

Mr. Dmitry Zaitsev, Member of the Board of SAI Russia, shared SAI Russia’s experience in using the data-centric approach in an external public audit. He pointed out that the key principles guiding the SAI’s transition to a data-centric model were the common digital space that encompassed digitalization of all auditing processes, establishing a single source of ‘truth’ for data storage, processing and presentation and full automation of all routine operations in order to redirect auditors to data analysis and violation detection. Two priority objectives were set out for the data-centric approach implementation: application of a risk-based approach and big data analysis in auditing.

The meeting participants drew a line under the Council’s operations according to the Operation Plan for the period between the XX and the XXI session (2023–2025). The meeting concluded with approval of the following documents: Method recommendations by CIS SAIs Heads Council on auditing consolidated information, Key principles of auditing implementation of public SDG policy measures in CIS member states and Practical recommendations on organizing strategic governance of SAI operations. The session participants also signed the Resolution and the Operation Plan for the next inter-session period.