Auditors should appropriately issue the reports to make the information available for timely use by management, legislative officials, and other interested parties.
7.7 To be of maximum use, the report must be timely. A carefully prepared report may be of little value to decisionmakers if it arrives too late. Therefore, auditors should plan for the appropriate issuance of the audit report and conduct the audit with this goal in mind.
7.8 The auditors should consider interim reporting, during the
audit, of significant matters to appropriate officials. Such communication,
which may be oral or written, is not a substitute for a final report, but
it does alert officials to matters needing immediate attention and permits
them to correct them before the final report is completed.
Comments:
1. GAO standards 7.6, 7.7, and 7.8 were applicable in 1997 and 1998
as the Inspector General's staff performed audits and identified significant
case reporting problems.
2. LSC Board Vice Chairman Erlenborn and LSC Inspector General Quatrevaux incorrectly told members of Congress government auditing standards do not allow the release of information from unfinished audits. GAO standard 7.8 clearly allows interim reporting, oral or written, before completing a final report. There was, and is nothing, in the IG Act or government auditing standards that would have prevented the LSC Inspector General from simply picking up the phone and alerting House and Senate appropriators that the Corporation's annual caseload report was unreliable.
Index of the LSC Case Over-Counting Scandal
Legal Services Accountability Project Page