Effectiveness of Independent Auditing in Public Sector as the Latest of Accountability Loop

auditing in public sector is a part of the process of control and accountability. That’s why, auditing in public sector organizations and studying its effectiveness are essential.

The objective of this research is investigating the usefulness and effectiveness of conducting independent auditing in public sector organizations.

. Data was gathered from 102 municipalities of Fars province using a 44-item questionnaire. “one-sample t-test” and “median test”, were used for statistical analyses.

The results of the data analyses of subsidiary hypotheses indicated that conducting independent auditing in municipalities is effective in identifying and deterring of noncompliance with law, regulation and internal circular. Also, conducting independent auditing partly assures probable error and fraud detection and correction and improves internal controls. However, conducting independent auditing in municipalities does not result in accurate and complete assessing and also relevance of estimates. Furthermore, economic, efficiency and program audits are not conducted effectively. The results of main hypotheses also reveal that conducting financial auditing is relatively effective, but conduct of performance auditing is not effective.

According to the findings, public sector organizations managers should pay more attention of the audit.