The Why, Who and What of Public Sector Auditing

Abstract

Public sector audit has grown in importance since the 1980s across the world. In this chapter, the authors outline the state of the current debate about public sector audit – including the role of the auditor, the purpose of audit, developments in the content of audit and the function of audit. The authors argue that these can be conceptualised through the literature of regulatory space. Drawing on the work of Ferry and Ahrens (2021), the authors set out categories which can be used to compare the ways in which different systems of local government audit can be compared and provide the justification for the intellectual approach taken by the rest of the volume.

Citation

Ferry, L., Ruggiero, P. and Midgley, H. (2022), "The Why, Who and What of Public Sector Auditing", Ferry, L. and Ruggiero, P. (Ed.) Auditing Practices in Local Governments: An International Comparison (Emerald Studies in Public Service Accounting and Accountability), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-085-720221001