Public Law Studies Quarterly

Principles and Rules of Conduct Governing the Performance Audit by the UK National Audit Office

Document Type : Article

Authors

Ayat Mulaee 1
Farshid Bandehali 2

1 Associate Professor of Law, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

2 Ph.D student in Public Law, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jplsq.2025.375760.3521
Abstract
The National Audit Office of the United Kingdom is a supervisory body which, from a perspective of its functional role, presents a seemingly similar image as other financial supervisory bodies in the Western world, such as the French Court of Auditors. However, contrary to these perceptions, its main activity is not to question the policies and executive programs of the government vis-à-vis the law. Rather, its function is a professional and administrative adjudication on how to preserve the value of public funds. This adjudication is entitled "performance auditing", which provides the necessary insight into the more effective management of taxpayers' money by providing facts about emerging issues in public spending. Therefore, assuming these differences, the present study, whose data was collected through a library and descriptive-analytical research, aims to answer the question: what are the fundamental principles and requirements, based on the behavioral rules of the government’s governance, around which the performance audits conducted by the National Audit Office of the United Kingdom are formed? The results of the present paper show that; these principles and foundations, despite their verbal commonality in all financial control systems, reveal a specific approach to the process of monitoring the public budget of a centralized government system based on credit creation through the protection and development of the interests of the multitude of  macroeconomic investors, without which the implementation and monitoring of the budget itself will become a place for political conflicts and disputes.

Keywords

Right of ownership
transparency
right of access to information
accrual accounting
performance audit
Subjects

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Public Law Studies Quarterly
Volume 56, Issue 1 - Serial Number 45
Spring 2026
Spring 2026
Pages 307-340

  • Receive Date 01 May 2024
  • Revise Date 28 October 2024
  • Accept Date 03 February 2025

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