The role and impact of performance audit: the case of Lithuania

This article investigates the impact of the public sector performance audit activity. The study shows that the modern performance audit does play an important role in the management of public and private sectors, includes the identification of major weaknesses embedded in operating processes or stemming from inadequate internal control, also the disclosure of possibilities for enhancement of operating economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. The implementation of accepted recommendations consequently led to the improvement performance. There are identified practical means that stop violations, decrease threats, help to correct this failure in reports. Their correction allows save funds, decrease expenses, to improve performance quality, ant to strengthen management, administration, and organizational processes and to improve legislation, to introduce financial discipline. The research is based on the data covering the years of 2011-2014 on performance audits of the Lithuanian State Audit institution and indicates that many shortcomings are related with public administration, not properly regulated certain processes or institutional performance, the determined regulations are not followed, the performance lacks control, the finances are not effectively used. According to research performed by Raudla et al. (2015), this study confirm too, that when Parliamentarians pay attention to performance audit and when media attention leads to political debate, the adoption of changes recommended by the performance audit report is more likely.