Abstract
Benefits and Challenges of Applying Data Analytics in Government Auditing
Highlights
Digitisation has revolutionised completely how industries and sectors operate, leading to the present-day phenomenon of Data Analytics (DA)
This study seeks to assess how DA can be implemented within the scope of Maltese external public sector audits in order to enhance the value obtained from these audits
The use of DA for selecting a representative sample selection as suggested by an interviewee from the Financial and Compliance (F&C) section is in line with Cangemi's (2014) argument that during the planning stage, DA can be very useful to identify higher risk areas
Summary
Digitisation has revolutionised completely how industries and sectors operate, leading to the present-day phenomenon of Data Analytics (DA). The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board Data Analytics Working Group (IAASB DAWG) “...the science and art of discovering and analysing patterns, deviations and inconsistencies, and extracting other useful information in the data underlying or related to the subject matter of an audit through analysis, modelling and visualisation for the purpose of planning or performing the audit.”. The auditing profession is shifting from one which used to be standard and routinebased, to one which takes advantage of data in order to identify patterns (Van Schoten, 2016). Various Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) such as those of the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia are radically transforming public sector auditing thanks to the advent of DA, as indicated by INTOSAI (2018) and VAGO (2018) respectively. It would allow the profession to add more value, both in terms of cost management as well as transparency and accountability (Lewis et al, 2014)
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