Audit

Dictionary definitions emphasize the auditor's roots in financial control. This is still a central feature of governmental audit. The focus of governmental audit has moved in several directions, some of them controversial. The modern history of the US General Accounting Office (GAO) resembles that of numerous other national auditors. A prominent figure in the history of auditing is Elmer Staats, Comptroller General of the United States from 1966 to 1981. During the 1970s Staats popularized the concept of three Es as the focus of audit: Efficiency, Economy, and Effectiveness. Government auditors typically operate under a law that defines the organizational structure of the audit body, its relationship to the executive and legislative branches, procedures for obtaining funding and personnel, and topics that auditors must examine or must not examine. Israel's State Comptroller is unusual in having a legal mandate to determine whether audited bodies have operated in a "morally irreproachable manner".