Audits on public money can be improved by the use of data and algorithms

Is the accountant a candidate for inclusion in the extinct species room? Or does the fast increase of use of datasets and algorithms help scrutinize the achievements of public services and others?

public services and others?

On 13 June 2019 Vice President Ewout Irrgang of the Netherlands Court of Audit (NCA) calls at the Cigar Network Congress in Amsterdam on seizing opportunities through the use of new technology by accountants and auditors in the private and public sector. Instead of taking samples for reviews, we now can analyse the whole dataset on a policy.

Supreme Audit Institutions can ensure the reliability of the underlying datasets for policy development. For instance NCA published on 11 June lately an audit on data-driven selection on tax returns. We found out the use of algorithms does not match with elements of the tax supervision policy of the national revenue service. Which can be at the expense of the individual tax payer.