Publication of the Annual Report 2023 of the Austrian Court of Audit

Today, the Austrian Court of Audit published its Annual Report 2023. 

2023 was a very eventful year with major challenges for the public sector. While the COVID-19 pandemic was declared over, inflation and the decline in economic output had a massive impact on the state budget. Governments at the federal and provincial level are called upon to take the right measures to make life easier for citizens and to ensure that public services remain at a high standard. This requires targeted measures that are well coordinated and implemented in line with actual needs.

Increased demands on public audit 

The Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) has long been trying to meet the increased demands on public audit by adopting a comprehensive audit approach: the audit portfolio for 2023 still includes several COVID-19 audits and a related discussion paper by the ACA ("COVID-19 | the.ACA’s.added.value"), as well as examinations of future challenges that require long-term thinking beyond electoral terms. This includes, in addition to the audit on the sustainability of the pension system (in German) also audits related to spacial planning, energy transition and climate protection. In the age of digitalization, the effective functioning of public administration is just as much a focus of ours as the reorganization of authorities, as was the case with the boards of education (in German). In addition, there are cross-cutting issues that are highly relevant to our society, such as violence and victim protection for women. The avoidance of conflicts of interest and the compliance management of public institutions, as well as corruption prevention, play an important role in the Court of Audit’s work. Strict standards must apply here, because they are essential for trust in institutions.

Follow-up enquiry: interactive and at a glance

With its follow-up enquiry (in German) the ACA measures its impact. For this purpose, it inquires the audited entities whether they have implemented the ACA's recommendations. In so-called follow-up audits, the ACA can verifies the information provided.

As part of its annual activity report, the ACA provides an interactive graph on the follow-up enquiry (in German).  Interested members of the public can see at a glance whether – according to the audited entities – the ACA's recommendations have been implemented. Filters can be used to search by individual reports or by levels of government. For 2022, for example, the chart shows that the ACA has an impact: 88.7% of recommendations were implemented, partially implemented, or their implementation was committed to. However, as in previous years, a number of key recommendations by the Court of Audit remained outstanding.

Interactive graph on the follow-up enquiry (in German)