지방정부 결산검사에 관한 비교연구

A Comparative Study on Local Governments’ Auditing and Examination: Focusing on Local Governments’ Auditing of Korea, Japan, France, United States, and United Kingdom

Local governments in Korea have a great deal of efforts to reform government accounting system for making more transparent government including adoption of double-entry bookkeeping and accrual accounting system. This study is intended to find lessons of changing the accounting audit process for Korean local governments by comparing other developed countries local government accounting system, such as Japan, France, U.S. and U.K. Local governments in Japan have internal accounting audit system with an auditor as a special and independent agency within the administration. In France, the decentralization reform introduced the establishment of the regional and territorial chambers of accounts (CRTC) for auditing local governments financial statements. Local governments in U.S. have various accounting audit system depending on their states constitution and laws. U.K. s audit system has recently changed local governments to appoint their own accounting auditor or to follow PSAA s collective scheme. The analysis on the local governments auditing systems of these countries finds that institutional supplementation of accounting and auditing system of Korean local governments is necessary. First, the range of examination on financial statements should be changed for increasing the level of assurance on the statements. Second, the financial statement examination results are recommended to be open to the public.