Report of Mr. V.K. Shunglu, Comptroller and Auditor General of India and Chairman, INTOSAI Standing Committee on EDP Audit at the 42nd Meeting of the Governing Board of INTOSAI
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members
| 1. | I have the honour to present this report on the INTOSAI Standing Committee on EDP Audit. |
| 2. | I am happy to inform the Governing Board that since my last report, two more SAIs, namely Brazil and Costa Rica have joined the Committee, taking its total membership to 17. The present composition of the Committee is enclosed in Annexure ‘A’ to this report. |
| 3. | At the XV INCOSAI held at Cairo last year, the Committee had presented three products, namely the "IT Audit Curriculum for INTOSAI", the "Guide to Developing IT Strategies in Supreme Audit Institutions" and the "Information System Security Review Methodology" to the Congress for approval, along with a plan of action for the next three years till the XVI INCOSAI. Both the products as well as the work plan of the Committee were endorsed by the Congress. Subsequent to approval by the Congress, the Committee has published the three products in all the five official INTOSAI languages and circulated it to INTOSAI members in January this year. |
| 4. | The work plan of the Committee approved at the XV INCOSAI covers outputs in three areas - ‘Information Interchange’, ‘Knowledge and Skill Development’ and ‘Knowledge Development and Transfer’. The Committee has been working actively towards the development of the products envisaged in the plan in these areas. |
| 5. | In the field of ‘Information Interchange’, the Committee has published and circulated the third issue of the INTOSAI IT Journal "intoIT". This issue contains a country focus on EDP Audit in SAI-Japan, a report on the IT Performance Audit Seminar held last year, two articles on audit approaches to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and an article on the use of IT for effective resource management within SAI-UK, besides news from around the world. The fourth issue of this Journal is under production and will be distributed shortly. |
| 6. | In the area of ‘Knowledge and Skill Development’, the Committee is in the process of developing training courseware for the Level 1 and Level 2 skills identified in the "IT Audit Curriculum for INTOSAI". A meeting of the concerned Working Group of the Committee was held in April 1996 at Barbados to discuss the outlines of the training courseware , along with example training material, with a view to ensuring that the content, presentation and teaching style of the courseware would be in line with the requirements of SAIs possessing varying degrees of IT and IT audit skills. |
| 7. | The Committee is also finalising a Reference List of Material on IT Performance Auditing in English, aimed at providing an introduction to, and guidance in this area. The list will be in two parts, the first part containing material based on information retrieved electronically from various public databases, and the second part based on responses received from a survey of SAIs. The list is expected to be ready by October this year. |
| 8. | In the area of ‘Knowledge Development and Transfer’, the Committee is conducting exploratory research projects on three topics - ‘Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and the Paperless Audit Environment’, ‘Auditing in a Client-Server Environment’ and ‘Performance Audit Methods for analysing Effectiveness of Use of New Technologies by Auditees’. As stated earlier, two articles on the audit of EDI have been featured in the third issue of "intoIT". The fourth issue of the Journal will contain an article on auditing in a client-server environment. |
| 9. | My colleagues in the Committee and I thank the Chairman, Secretary General and members of the Governing Board for their guidance, encouragement and support to the Committee. |
ANNEXURE `A’
List of members of the INTOSAI Standing Committee on EDP Audit
ANNEXURE `B’
List of Members of Working Groups of INTOSAI Standing Committe on EDP Audit