The Subcommittee on Peer Reviews (further Subcommittee, also previously known as Subcommittee 3: Promote best practices and quality assurance through voluntary peer reviews) was created under the scope of the INTOSAI Capacity Building Committee at its inaugural meeting in London, 13 – 14 March, 2006 with the following tasks:

• To assess and document existing peer review arrangements in the INTOSAI community.
• To foster an environment where such voluntary reviews are seen as beneficial to both the SAI undertaking the review and the SAI choosing to undergo it and establish global and regional mechanisms for initiating peer reviews.
• To update the CBC Guidelines on Peer Reviews and the developed checklist based on the experience of SAIs and provide further good practices on how to undertake voluntary peer reviews.
• To disseminate the results of peer reviews, as appropriate and as agreed to by participating SAIs.

The Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic (SAO SR) is the Subcommittee Chair since November 2012. It´s predecessor, SAI of Germany, chaired the Subcommittee in 2005 – 2012. It´s biggest achievement was to present the first INTOSAI guidance on peer reviews at the XX INCOSAI in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2010.

The role and importance of Peer Review as one of the foremost capacity building tools was underlined in the first INTOSAI Strategic plan 2010 – 2016 and that position was maintained in the INTOSAI Strategic plan 2017 – 2022 in its Crosscutting Priority 1. – Advocating for and supporting the independence of SAIs that stated: “INTOSAI also will continue to encourage SAIs to undergo periodic peer reviews that provide vital external validations of an SAI’s quality assurance processes.” 

The importance of the peer review in the area of performance assessment and ongoing improvement for the INTOSAI community is also underlined in the 2023 – 2025 Operational Plan for Goal 2: Capacity development within the Strategic plan 2023 – 2028.

One of the Subcommittee´s goals, to revise the ISSAI 5600 Peer Review Guide and its Annex and present them before the INTOSAI community, was fulfilled at the XXII INCOSAI in Abu Dhabi when the ISSAI 5600 was adopted by the XXII INTOSAI Congress. The ISSAI 5600 along with other INTOSAI standards underwent a makeover and was renamed as GUID 1900 – Peer Review Guidelines.

Presentation on Incosai
Infographic on INTOSAI

Global Flyer Survey on Peer Reviews 2023

May 26 – June 26, 2023
The Subcommittee on Peer Reviews in line with the INTOSAI Strategic plan 2023 -2028 (goal 2 strategic development) is organizing a survey on peer reviews in 2021 – 2022.

  Documentation from peer-review on-line seminar Getting ready for a peer review 10 November 2021.

Agenda

1. SAI South Africa

2. GAO US

3. SAI Slovakia

4. SAI Austria

5. SAI Romania

6. EDA

7. SAI Estonia

PEER REVIEW CONFERENCE IN BRATISLAVA, 20-22 JUNE 2018.

The CBC Subcommittee on Peer Reviews invited all interested colleagues and parties to a conference Motivating and equipping SAIs to carry out peer reviews, that took place in Bratislava, Slovakia. The conference offered three themes, two panel- and one round-table discussions with a host of interesting contributions by varied personalities:

• Theme I – SAIs leading by example through carrying out peer reviews
• Theme II – Peer review tools to improve the SAIs performance
• Theme III – Good practices in a peer review

Please find the conference agenda here: Agenda Peer Review Conference 2018. The conference was organised with support of the Capacity Building Committee and its proceedings were translated into and from English, French and Spanish.

In 2017, the Subcommittee and its Chair  supported and performed a review of the Global peer review on independence project conducted by INTOSAI General Secretariat. SAO SR along the SAI of Norway and INTOSAI General Secretariat (INTOSAI GS) signed a trilateral MoU in 2016 to perform in 2017 an assessment of the Global peer review on independence conducted by the SAI of Austria, INTOSAI GS and other auditors from 7 relevant participating INTOSAI regions in 2016.