What Does Current Literature Reveal about Public Sector Audit? Literature Review

Purpose: The purpose of this literature review is to analyze the existing literature and identify what is public sector auditing and why it should exist. This literature review combines the thought of existing literature and attempts to provide an overview on how public sector audit evolves, various frameworks of public sector audit, structure and function of public sector audit, the value of public sector audit. Design/Methodology: To achieve the objective of this study a desktop study which consists of analyzing both the published and unpublished materials has been conducted. As this study is fully dependent on a desktop study, various e-journals related to public sector audit have been analyzed rigorously. Two terms one is “Public Sector Audit” and another one is “State Audit” have been used for searching the articles. Apart from this, approaches of the prior researchers' approach have also been used. To achieve the aim of this study 42 papers have been rigorously studied along with other supplementary e-journals. The prime focus was given on the abstract, explanation for the value of audit especially public sector audit, theoretical, institutional, and competency framework of public sector audit, historical development of audit, and future research agenda discussed in the prior studies. Findings: By analyzing the prior studies, it is found that the auditing practice of public sector audit is quite different from private sector audit. Generally, a public sector audit is done on performance and financial statements. Audit General or Comptroller Audit General conducts the audit and SAI (Supreme audit institution) is the responsible body. ISSAI standards are being followed widely by the SAIs. But more research is needed on clarifying why practices of SAIs vary from country to country. Novelty: This study is unique from prior studies as it extensively evaluates the value of the public sector auditing and also provides an overview on the historical development of the public sector auditing, theoretical, institutional, and competency framework of auditing, and combines the thought of researchers in one place to provide future research agenda.