Eric MONNIER

1
Internal Audit Service 2009 Conference
 Borderlines concept 

• Eric MONNIER
• Lecturer at Geneva University
• Managing Director of Euréval (France)

2
Three key borderlines

• Why? ? Complementarity or overlapping
  judgements?
• What? ? The floating boundaries of the
  judgement scope
• Who? ? Insiders vs Outsiders

The borderline syndrome a pattern of
instability in mood, interpersonal relations, and
self-image, and manifested by self-destructive,
impulsive, and inconsistent behavior
Content
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The value added of an audit

• a cognitive purpose providing a better
  empirical knowledge
• a normative purpose formulating a judgement
  about observed reality
• an instrumental purpose recommending solutions
  to overcome problems

Why?
4
The overlapping syndrome

• Due to corruption, the waste treatment plant
  was not built which has diverted local
  industrial projects andhampered the development
  of the region.

Source an audit report of the last century
Why?
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From legal to political responsibilities
Publicorganisations...
interactwith outsiders...
...lose contactwith end beneficiaries
Inputs
Outputs
Results
Impacts
...are legally responsible
...fully responsible
...partly responsible
politically responsible?
...accountable before
the Courts
the executiveManagement
the Board or the Government
Parliament and Society
Why?
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Complementarity or overlapping ?
ORGANISATION
SOCIETY
Inputs
Outputs
Results
Impacts
The scope
Managementaudit
Programme evaluation
Legalcontrol
Performanceaudit
Type of exercice
ComplianceCoherence
EfficiencyCoherence
RelevanceEffectiveness
EfficiencyEffectiveness
Core judgments
Societyvalues
Proceduresand rules
Organisational benchmarks
Operational goals
Judgment criteria
Why?
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The scope of the audit
Where are the boundaries?
a single mission or several conflicting missions?
Action 1
Action 2
Organi-sation
Organi-sation
Action 3
Action 4
a separate organisation or a delivery system?
What?
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How far enlarging the operational scope?

• The various missions of a given organisation
  compete.
• Generic benchmarks vs ad hoc management criteria
• Balance between missions changes over time and
  context.
• Comparative analysis confronted to uneven
  weighting of judgment criteria
• The pace of innovations and social changes is
  unsteady.
• The impossible anticipation of the obsolescence
  of solutions .

What?
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How far enlarging to the delivery system?
Delivery system
Organisation
Interdependency
Negotiations
Conflicts

• The boundary paradox
• Focussing on the organisation audited in view
  offormulating robust judgments
• Enlarging the scope to the delivery system for
  ensuring fair judgments

What?
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Auditors the insider/outsider dilemna
Who?
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Advantage and danger of internal consensus
about values or goals
Agreement
Negotiated compromises
Consensus
Disagreement
Agreement
about facts or solutions
Blocked situations
Negotiated compromises
Disagreement
Who?
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Straddling the borderline deliberately
Audited organisation
Managing Board
Mixed Audit Committee
Outside peers
Hybrid audit team
Internal auditors
External auditors
Who?
13
Some contributions to the debates

• Promote clearer distinctions and
  complementarities with Control and Evaluation is
  crucial to get the best from Management and
  Performance Audits.
• Defining the scope of a audit requires to reach a
  good compromise in order to support reliable and
  fair judgments.
• Developing hybrid auditing system (committee and
  team) may be the best way to combine reliable and
  useful conclusions for decision makers.

Who?
14
For more

• Information about the following slides
• s3-6 The MEANS collection (Evalsed Web site)
  and the Europeaid collection of 4 guidelines (see
  Europeaids Web site)
• s9 Crozier M. Friedberg E. "L'acteur et le
  système Editions du Seuil, 1981 Morin E.  La
  méthode la nature de la nature  Seuil, 1977
• s11 Kickert W. J.M. et alia Managing Complex
  network strategies for the public sector 1997
• S12 Morel Ch. Les décisions absurdes
  Sociologie des erreurs radicales et persistantes
  Gallimard, 2002Vaughan D. The Challenger launch
  decision risky technology, culture, and deviance
  at NASA University of Chicago Press, 1996
• Contact Eric Monnier monnier_at_eureval.fr
• University of Geneva, Faculté des sciences
  économiques et sociales
• Euréval, 13bis place Jules Ferry, 69006 Lyon
  www.eureval.org

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