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If success is defined as positive impact on the community, then performance auditors who engage in skillful political analysis and behavior will be more successful than those who do not. Technically strong audit work is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. Government auditors tend to shy away from doing things that seem to them to be political. But, this reaction is based on a misconception of political behavior.
I will use the following comments by Ann-Marie Hogan, City Auditor of Berkeley, California, in a recent exchange on the ALGA listserve regarding audit committees, to illustrate my point.
In the city of Berkeley, the Council has not had any kind of committee structure in the six years I’ve been here. The Council is a rigidly divided two-party system by long past practice (the two parties being effectively the more conservative wing of the Democratic party vs. the liberal wing plus the Greens. The old dividing issue was the Viet Nam war; the new ones are rent control and low income housing, and never the twain shall meet). Worse, they are all elected by district (8 districts in a city of 105,000). This makes any kind of committee problematic, let alone an “audit and finance” committee.
So, I set up a four-person audit committee, invited two Councilmembers from each “side” (including the Mayor, who has no special powers under our Charter, except to chair meetings) and have worked to keep their interest in audit matters alive. I also have a monthly lunch with a “citizen focus group” of folks I invited, again taking care to include members of both “sides.” Finally, I meet monthly with the City Manager, and periodically with the Deputies and the Budget Director, to keep them informed and enlist their support for implementation of audit recommendations. All three groups have input into my annual audit plan, though the decision is mine to make.
The degree to which I am successful in engaging support depends almost entirely on my own ability to balance the three broad constituencies (general public, city staff/city manager, and Council), and to maintain the appearance as well as the reality of independence for myself and my staff, and to work hard at persuading and engaging whoever happens to be in power this year.
As this passage illustrates, Ann-Marie has done a sophisticated analysis of political information and is acting on that analysis. She is engaging in political behavior. More of us auditors need to learn to do what she is doing if we want to manage strong audit functions that make meaningful contributions to the communities we serve.
Political information has to do with power relationships among individuals, that is alliances, allegiances and structures of groups within the community and how those relationships might bear on policy questions and issues. This is seen in the first paragraph of Ann-Marie’s comments as she describes and makes sense of the structure of relationships and interests in her city. Identifying the relationships, their implications for questions of policy and how to best negotiate within the structure to achieve desired outcomes thus requires political analysis. Political analysis and its implementation is seen in the second paragraph of her comments.
Engaging in political behavior means taking the actions dictated by the information and analysis. Successful auditors engage in political behavior in the sense of analyzing organizations from the point of view of power relationships and taking appropriate actions to protect and defend the audit function and further the implementation of audit recommendations. Ann-Marie makes this point, that her work in this arena is critical to her success, in the final paragraph of her comments.
Most auditors describe themselves as analytical. Auditors need to understand that political analysis is analysis. Not to engage in political analysis is to abandon an important tool. We can learn to identify political information, engage in political analysis and use the results to guide our behavior. Over time we can increase our ability to do this well. There is nothing immoral, wrong, corrupt or deceitful about this. In fact, not applying these skills can be wrong if only by applying them can a good outcome be obtained. Politics is the way governance works – it can be done poorly and corruptly or it can be done nobly and well. If we want to make a difference, we must learn to do politics well.
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Funkhouser on Auditing