Improving Federal Grant Accountability
While the single audit process is an important accountability mechanism relied on to help ensure accountability for the use of federal grants, the quality of single audits has long been an area of concern.
- There has been a significant increase in the level of federal grant awards over the past two decades.
- The single audit process is very complex due to the many different federal entities involved in overseeing the process.
- The roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved in the single audit process, as well as the approach for conducting single audits warrants further analysis to determine if changes are needed to better ensure audit quality and accountability for federal grant funds.
^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done
The roles and responsibilities of the various entities involved in overseeing and conducting single audits of federal grantees should be reassessed to determine if they are appropriately risk-based and help strengthen accountability for federal grant funds. Such a reassessment should consider factors such as
- audit quality problems by size of audit,
- distribution of audits by size,
- whether simplified alternatives could better meet the accountability objectives of the Single Audit Act,
- whether the resources allocated to oversight of single audits is adequate, and
- whether specific requirements in the Office of Management and Budget Circular
A-133 and the Single Audit Act should be updated.
Highlights of GAO-08-213T (PDF)
^ Back to topKey Reports
- Responses to Posthearing Questions Related to Improving Single Audit Quality
- GAO-08-318R, December 7, 2007
- Summary (HTML) Full Report (PDF, 8 pages) Accessible Text
- Single Audit Quality: Actions Needed to Address Persistent Audit Quality Problems
- GAO-08-213T, October 25, 2007
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 23 pages) Accessible Text
