Draft Guidelines on Best Practice for the Audit of Economic Regulation
By Sir John Bourn
Comptroller and Auditor General of the United Kingdom
Chairman of the Working Group on the Audit of Privatisation
One of the most striking off-shoots of privatisation is the developing role of economic regulation as a means of checking the power of monopolistic or dominant suppliers of vital utilities now in private ownership. The regulators face a difficult task in balancing the legitimate interests of the consumer against those of the supplier: how to secure a fair service for a fair price. And of course economic regulation takes a variety of forms and is applied across economic sectors, including industries in public as well as private hands.
The guidelines on the audit of economic regulation set out in this document represent the experience not only of the 31 SAIs who are Members of the Working Group on the Audit of Privatisation, but also of the many other SAIs who contributed to the 1998 INTOSAI survey of economic regulation and its audit, which forms the basis of the guidelines. It is clear from these experiences that across a widening range of countries the performance of regulated businesses and their impact on the lives of citizens is a matter of keen interest and debate. And SAIs are increasingly being expected to evaluate and publicly report on the effectiveness of these regulatory systems. The guidelines are intended to be a practical aid to SAIs as they set about this challenging task. I commend them.
Full details available at: http://www.nao.gov.uk/intosai/wgap/ecregguidelines.htm
John Bourn
