Many of them have expressed frustration at the fact that they are not good writers. Consequently, they waste considerable amounts of time doing what they are worst at. Meanwhile, the senior auditors have similar problems synthesizing all of the individual sections together to compile a single report draft from the work provided by the auditors. Generally, the most laborious part of that chore for senior auditors is making the necessary changes to each of the individual sections first.
By contrast, the proposed changes to the audit report production process is designed to allow the senior auditors to reconcile any technical audit issues with the individual auditors while largely ignoring the writing of those sections. The senior auditor's primary responsibility is simply to confirm that the technical audit information is correct and that it is presented in a manner that fulfills the audit plan. The senior auditors now send the writer the individual sections combined into the structural form of a complete draft report but without any significant changes to the writing.
Under the proposed changes, the writer will have already attended the audit team meetings and will have an understanding of the audit plan by the time he or she ever sees the first report draft. In essence, the writer will already know the story of the audit and is just waiting for factual information, analyses, and conclusions from the audit team. Currently, the audit team (at various levels) must author the story together with providing the factual information because the writer only learns the story of the audit by reading the first draft of the report after the individual sections have been written by auditors, edited and rewritten by senior auditors, and edited and rewritten again by audit managers.
Conclusion
If necessary, the writer would confirm information or intended presentation structure, but it is more likely that the writer will be able to collaborate with the senior auditor and the audit manager to refine the report more efficiently than is currently possible.
In general, the most important advantage of the proposed change to the audit report production process is that it tremendously reduces the amount of time currently wasted by auditors, senior auditors, and audit managers on writing. It eliminates most of the redundant duplication of effort between the various levels of review and it allows auditors to focus more on audit issues. Ultimately, it would increase the audit report production speed, allow the Inspector General for Audit to complete more audits every year, and recover more federal money every fiscal year than the current process allows.
References
Cornell University Law School. (2011). U.S. Code Title V. Inspector General Act of
1978. Retrieved July 18, 2011 from the CULS Legal Information Institute website http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode05a/usc_sup_05_5_10_sq2.html
Edwards, G., Wattenberg, M., and Lineberry, R. (2009). Government in America: People,
Politics, and Policy. New York, NY: Longman.
George, J.M. And Jones, G.R. (2008). Understanding and Managing Organizational
Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
