On April 8, 2021 was launched a  series of seminars on the experience exchange  between the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the CIS SAIs.

The Agenda 2021–2022 includes 14 seminars on 12 topical units. The plan has been prepared and approved by the Council of Heads of the SAIs  (Financial Control)  of the CIS Member States.

Timur Makhmutov, Director of the Department for International and Regional Cooperation, gave an opening speech for the participants:

“Such format of the events will help to expand  the knowledge and professional skills of our employees, improve the efficiency of practical audit work, and initiate  the development of the other educational projects under the auspices of the Council of Heads of the SAIs  (Financial Control)  of the CIS Member States.”

As part of the first seminar in the series “Quality Assessment Reports in the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation” Daria Tsyplakova, Director of the Research and Methodology Department,  delivered her presentation.  Within  her speech, she introduced in detail  the principles and stages  of assessing the quality of reports, namely: independence, objectivity, development, usefulness, and professionalism. She also shared the experience obtained by the Accounts Chamber in the field  of improving the reports quality  through the external experts engagement,  building additional  competencies, and developing  quality management tools.

The second seminar in the series took place on April 13, 2021. Elena Boytsova and Denis Strizheusov, Director and Deputy Director of the Department for Financial Audit  respectively, delivered the presentation on the  “Audit Quality Control.” During the speech, they focused on statutory framework used to assess the quality of audit (ISSAI 140, SPA 107), the key principles of audit, and the audit quality control cycle, that  includes 3 levels: work with the documentation, quality control, and subsequent monitoring.

Vasilina Zhischenko, Senior Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia,  who acted as an external expert, also provided her comments  and shared some practical information about how a major consulting company controls the quality of audit.

The second seminar was joined by the SAIs representatives of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Moldova, Tadzhikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as the regional audit institutions  of the constitutive  entities of the Russian Federation and territorial bodies of the State Control Committee of the Republic of Belarus.

The third seminar is scheduled for July – August 2021. The transparency of activities undertaken by the SAIs will be the topic of the seminar.