The role of an auditor-general
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An auditor-general independently examines how well government agencies manage public money, reporting findings directly to parliament rather than to the government of the day. That reporting line is deliberate, since it keeps the auditor answerable to the legislature as a whole rather than to the ministers whose departments are actually being examined.
The office typically conducts two kinds of work: financial audits that check whether an agency's accounts are accurate, and performance audits that ask whether a program actually achieved what it set out to achieve for the money spent. Performance audits often draw the most public attention, since they can reveal waste or poor planning even where the paperwork itself is technically correct.
Because the auditor-general has no power to force a change, influence depends heavily on the credibility of the reports and the political cost an agency faces from being publicly criticised. A pattern of ignored recommendations is usually a stronger warning sign than any single critical finding taken alone.