Information. Good performance audits bring to light information that was previously unknown to decision-makers and stakeholders outside the program. Unlike financial audits that are designed to confirm management’s representations, performance audits are often designed to provide new information that even management was unaware of (although perhaps it should have been). The audit manual of the National Audit Office in the United Kingdom refers to information like this as “news.” This “news” is what gives performance audits the power to persuade.

Ideas. Powerful information is a necessary, but not sufficient, ingredient for an effective audit. We also need ideas about what the information means and what to do about it. Often good performance auditing involves looking at what many have looked at and seeing what few have seen. Good audits present information and ideas in ways that lead to new insights and new connections between seemingly disparate facts. This deeper understanding of the root causes of problems leads to strong recommendations.

Allies. You or your audit organization working alone will accomplish little – you need allies. Many of our colleagues perceive the auditor as a hero working alone or with a small band of other auditors to stand against a tide of incompetence and corruption. Indeed, for many of us, the profession’s conceptions of independence reinforce this notion. But independence does not require isolation. An individual auditor or an audit organization that is isolated from the larger organization or from the community it serves is cut off from sources of critical information, from helpful insights and from valuable allies. Allies can come from within agency management or from staff further down in the organization (back-channel communications from within the organization can be very helpful). The media, elected officials, interest groups, citizen activists and neighborhood leaders can also be important allies.

From time to time someone in my community will say that I have courage to undertake the audits we do, to report the finding and recommendations we do, and to withstand the criticism and controversy we sometimes generate. I won’t lie – I do get pretty nervous on occasion. But that sort of thing is not what I truly fear. I am gripped by terror when I think that perhaps we’ll cease to find “news” in the audits we do and that good ideas will cease to come, for I recognize that I cannot be sure of either. When we start an audit I do not know what we will find and I certainly cannot command good ideas “on cue” from my staff or myself. But those moments of fear have grown fewer and fewer over the years. With experience I have learned that if we stick with the audit basics: plan our work well; do solid fieldwork; work together to develop an understanding of what we have found; and write a message-driven report, the information and the ideas will come. In recent years I have also begun to recognize that I can be independent without being isolated and that if my staff and I are open to folks throughout the audit and keep working on the issues raised after the audit is released, the allies will come as well.