Performance audit
Topic: Constitutional Bodies: UPSC, CAG, Finance Commission and Others · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A performance audit is a CAG audit that checks whether government programmes achieved their goals. It judges them by the "3Es":
- economy: was the cost kept low?
- efficiency: was the best output got from the money?
- effectiveness: was the aim achieved?
It goes beyond checking rules and looks at results. Its reports go to the President or Governor under Art. 151 and are then laid before the legislature. There the Public Accounts Committee (a parliamentary committee that examines government spending) studies them.
Example
The CAG's 2010 audit of 2G spectrum licences was a performance audit. So was its 2023 report on Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase I, which flagged cost escalation on the Dwarka Expressway.
Don't confuse with
- Compliance audit: this only checks whether spending followed the law and rules, not whether the programme worked.