Future-ready for AI

Of late, ‘digital’ is the buzz word and the governments of the day have taken giant strides in automating their business processes as well as service delivery. Under the changed circumstances, the institution of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has redesigned the audit process to make the organisation ready for a paperless audit, and is preparing all its audit reports in an on-line mode. This makes the organisation ready to harness the power of AI in future.

The impetus for such a paradigm shift in audit outlook came in the wake of a felt need of making the audit processes more efficient and effective through a state-of-the-art end-to-end automation of process workflow. A workforce of around 40,000 people, spread over 150 offices, offered its unique operational, behavioral as well as technological challenges.

Nevertheless, the audit leadership took a bold decision in 2019 to completely automate the process, from engagement with the units to execution and reporting on audit output and wider stakeholder interaction. One IA&AD One System (OIOS) is unique in the world in the sense that none of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of other countries have such a wide-ranging, comprehensive digitised workflow system being used by over 27,000 auditors. This fully automated audit process has now become the medium of conducting audit in the establishment of the CAG (SAI India) since first of April 2023.

This also entailed creation of massive digital infrastructure with SAI India’s own Data Center, own communication backbone in the form of IAAD Net and other security and firewall structures. Moreover, every auditor is now equipped with a laptop or desktop having latest technology to easily scan and store voluminous documents.

Just to give an idea about the scale of the operations, on an average 5,000 auditors have been logging on each day in 130 audit offices spread all over India. They have collectively issued over 32,000 Inspection Reports to various government departments since the initiation of the OIOS in a pilot mode in Nov 2020.

The benefit has been immense. It has led to better way of resource planning, better targeting of audit based on risk identification, better management of work during field audits and quicker and more interesting way of reporting on the audit findings. The OIOS is also empowering the SAI India’s auditors in data analytics since data collected through online toolkits can be analysed through any analytics software such as Power BI in order to further improve audit processes. The digitisation process entails a complete digital record of each and every step involved in audit and each and every document relied upon by audit in drawing conclusions. No doubt, such information at the finger tips have boosted the auditors’ morale in vouching for the final audit report with a lot more confidence.

SAI India have invested heavily in capacity building of its workforce in the form of training in basic computer literacy to advanced data analytics. There has been structured training modules with audio-visual methods for self-learning by the auditors and there has been expert level hand-holding throughout the entire process.

Often, challenges were there from the side of the government audited entities, especially as the offices of state governments have either not been equipped well digitally or have a reluctance to move away from established way of interacting with audit.

For the stakeholders including elected representatives, alert citizens, media and think tanks, the digitisation process would eventually offer interactive reporting which can be customisable at the end of the user for specific needs, adding value to any public policy research, reporting and discourse.

The satisfaction level of the stakeholders is much higher now, since there is only a single source of truth and the process can be verified at any point in time. Moreover, once a document is supplied in a digital form, that same document can be used in multiple cases by audit, reducing the workload of the government officers.

SAI India has been leading from the front in its quest for harnessing the benefits of emerging technologies. SAI India is regarded, in the international audit forums such as the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and its Asian body the ASOSAI, as an organisation which is capable of adapting to changing needs of the time quickly and effectively. SAI India’s leadership role in SAI20 (a group under the G20) Auditor Generals’ summit held in Goa has been much appreciated by the global audit profession. SAI20 event has established Indian audit’s professionalism and its commitment for delivering high quality reports with the help of information technology.

The institution of CAG has been using the technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Unmanned Ariel Vehicle, geo-spatial mapping, remote sensing data, image analytics, pattern matching and graph theory in red-flagging risk areas in audit.

Auditing is unique to the SAI India and hence all the processes involved in producing an audit report are also unique. It had to design and develop the processes de novo and had to train its staff in the new ways of doing audit. The audit officers and staff, now equipped with digital devices such as laptops, scanners, document feeder and a digital databank to support their knowledge, can go to an office and conduct their business with least dependence on the auditee, thus reinforcing the constitutionally guaranteed independence to the institution.

In less than a year of implementing such a process automation, the institution of CAG has started reaping the benefits. The audit assignments requiring involvement of many offices are now better coordinated and the data is centrally pooled for quick generation of reports. The MIS generated gives senior management greater control over the progress of audit and mid-course reviews are now easier to conduct.

There has been a great deal of interest in the product, not only by government departments but even by the public auditors from other countries. Enquiries have been received and studies have been conducted on the transformational process at the SAI India.

In the technology domain, even sky is not the limit. Technology changes very fast and if an organisation is not alert to such changes, it would be stuck in the old ways and would not be able to transform. The takeaway from the experience in implementing OIOS has been the knowledge of pivoting an organisation of the size of SAI India towards a direction of technological change. SAI India would be preserving and utilising this knowledge in times to come. Being alert is being alive.

The writer is Additional Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Views expressed are personal