History and background

Almost every country has a superior audit authority, which is meant to support the constitutional segregation of duties between government and parliament. The public audit authority is placed either under the Judicial, the Executive, or the Legislative function of the constitutional order. In countries with democracy, however, the independence of the public audit authority is always guaranteed by law, and the audit of public accounts helps to secure democratic control and promote effective and reliable administration.

Denmark's first constitution, dating back to 1849, was in many ways inspired by the Belgian constitution from 1831 and this was reflected in the provision concerning the Budget, which conveyed the appropriation authority to the Rigsdag [parliament]. The constitutional commission therefore considered setting up a public audit authority as a special administrative court along the lines of the Belgian court of audit. However, it was decided that the Landsting and the Folketing [the two parliamentary chambers] should instead set up a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) with four members. As in Norway, the PAC was to review the state accounts which would subsequently be presented to the two chambers with the Commissioners' comments.

When the Rigsdag in 1855 passed the common constitution for Denmark, Schleswig and Holstein [German duchies], it was stipulated that a court of audit was to be established by law. However, when the law text was to be formulated, the legislators were quite worried at the prospects of handing over the responsibility for the administrative audit, which had so far been in the hands of the ministries, to an independent audit authority. Consensus on a bill was never reached and the provision concerning the establishment of a court of audit was rejected in the Folketing in 1866, when the constitution was revised. Instead it was decided to abide by the resolution concerning the PAC. In 1901 the Folketing revived the issue once more. And again, without reaching any conclusion.

The PAC and National Audit Offices

The limitation of the PAC was in particular that its members could only reconcile appropriation and account figures, but in practice they could only with difficulty carry out an actual audit that would indicate whether the accounts submitted by the ministries were correct. In consequence hereof, the Rigsdag therefore adopted the first public accounts bill in 1917. According to this act, the members of the PAC could base their work on the audit reports issued by the administrative auditors in the ministries and thus the current division of labour between the PAC and the Auditor General was established.

The ministries' accounting and audit procedures were, however, not very well organised. The concerns over this expressed by the PAC contributed in 1926 to the adoption of the first Act on Public Accounts. This Act established the requirement that all government accounts should be subject to financial audit, legal - critical audit and performance audit. Similar provisions can be found in the current Auditor General's Act, sections 2 and 3. The Ministry of Finance set up 4 national audit offices which shared the responsibility of auditing all state institutions. In conformity with the provisions currently applying to Rigsrevisionen, the PAC could request the national audit offices to conduct examinations. However, the national audit offices, which in 1958 changed their name to audit departments, were at the same time an integral part of the internal audit system, which was available to the individual ministries.

Rigsrevisionen Sees the Day of Light

Rigsrevisionen was established on 1 January 1976 through a merger of the 2 audit departments, remaining after the passing of the Auditor General's Act of 1975. A ministerial committee had considered the possibility of placing Rigsrevisionen under the Folketing. In the opinion of the committee, however, such a change would require an amendment of the constitution. Therefore, the committee recommended that Rigsrevisionen became independent of both government and parliament. When the Auditor General's Act was about to be formulated, it turned out that the prepatory committee was not at all inclined to change Rigsrevisionen's attachment to the executive power. Only the heads of the 2 audit departments were in favour of transferring the new Rigsrevisionen to the Folketing. Rigsrevisionen was therefore established as an independent institution under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the King would, upon recommendation from the Minister for Economic Affairs and after consultation with the PAC, appoint the Auditor General. The new organisation enhanced Rigsrevisionen's possibilities of doing cross-disciplinary examinations and recruit skills that would strengthen the performance audit activities and meet the challenges related to the introduction of electronic data processing.

In 1991, Rigsrevisionen was transferred from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to the Folketing. The bill on the amendments of the Auditor General's Act was drafted by the PAC, introduced by the Presidency of Parliament and carried unanimously by the Folketing.

Today, Rigsrevisionen is an independent institution under the authority of the Folketing. The Auditor General is appointed by the President of the Folketing upon the recommendation of the PAC, cf. the Auditor General's Act, section 1.