The Analysis of the Findings Reported in the Performance Audit of State Universities

Abstract

With the Public Financial Management and Control Law, the public financial management and control system has been changed within the framework of a new understanding. This new systemis built on the concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, economy, transparency and accountability. One of the innovation that this new public financial management systems is the Performance Based Budgeting system. The basic tools of this system are the annual report, strategic plan and performance report. Performance audit is both an integral part of the performance-based budgeting system and an important tool to guide this system. Performance audits of state agencies under the general management in Turkey is carried out by the Turkish Court of Accounts(TCA). The TCA fulfills the performance audit task by evaluating the quality of performance information in the basic tools of the performance-based monitoring process of public administrations. Public universities with special budgets, which are one of the public administrations within the scope of general government, are also subject to the performance audit of the TCA. The public is assured about the accuracy and reliability of non-financial performance information, which is based on the service delivery of the universities by the performance audit conducted by the TCA. The performance audit of the TCA is an integral part of both the guiding and budgeting process in terms of showing the improper practices of universities in the performance-based budgeting process and providing suggestions for correcting them. This study aims to research the results of a performance audit of the state universities conducted by TCA For this purpose, the results of the performance audits of 38 universities, which were conducted in 2017, were examined using content analysis. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that there are universities that do not meet both the reporting requirements and the criteria for the content of performance information.