PLANNING AT NAO

Planning is done at strategic, annual operational and individual audit level. These plans incorporate all the three disciplines of audit services offered by NAO
  • Strategic Level
Currently NAO has a five year strategic plan which runs from 2015 to 2019. It has six strategic outcomes namely:
  1. Enhanced Independent Status of National Audit Office
  2. Increased stakeholders' confidence in government financial management systems
  3. Enhanced Value for Money, environmental sustainability and integrity of IT systems in the MDAs when implementing their planned projects and programmes
  4. Improved organizational, management and administrative processes
  5. Improved Human Resource Management and development Services
  6. Improved Information, Communication and Technology services
Strategic outcomes 2 & 3 represent the strategy for regularity and specialised audit (Performance and IT/IS audits) respectively.
  • Annual Operational plan
This includes plans cascaded down from the strategic plan based on the implementation matrix. It sets the annual targets of the audits and activities to be carried out during the year. Risk assessment is conducted on various MDAs and Programmes to ascertain materiality in terms of value, auditability, potential for change.
The annual operational plan is costed and turned into the annual budget. It forms part of both the institutional performance contract and the individual performance agreements.
Besides NAO has a corporate calendar that guides implementation of the set annual plans, See the attached.
  • Planning for individual audits
The various audit disciplines have their own systematic way of planning based on the International Standards for Supreme Audit Institutions. These are also outlined in the individual audit calendar which guides the implementation of the audits, see the attached.
  • Monitoring of the implementation of the plans
On quarterly basis reports are produced for the various departments indicating progress of the implementation of the individual audits and the annual operational plan. The Strategic plan undergoes a mid-term review to assess the progress of its implementation.