Publication of the Annual Report 2024 of the Austrian Court of Audit

Today, the Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) published its Annual Report 2024. Therein, it provides a comprehensive overview of its work. In 2024, the ACA published 49 reports; in end-December 2024 87 audits were being carried out, of which 47 concerned the audit priority "Next Generation Austria. Are we passing on something besides debt to the next generation? On the future role of the state for the next generation." 

In July 2024, the ACA started the planning process for the audits in 2025, which will have a particular focus on the new audit priority "Trust in public institutions. How future-proof is Austria's public administration?".

International mandates complement the ACA's national tasks. Since September 2023, the ACA has held an important mandate as external auditor: at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which is the world's larges security organization based in Vienna.

The ACA furthermore also published a Veröffentlicht wurde heute außerdem eine new episode of "Trust" -The ACA Podcast, in which President Margit Kraker informs about the Annual Report 2024.

"Drawing on criticism to evolve"

"At the ACA, we always try not only to highlight past events in our audits. We always critically examine what has not gone well in any given case. This is our primary task. And criticism is important. However, as far as I am concerned, criticism is never an end in itself. If criticism is limited to merely describing the state of things, it is worthless taken in isolation. It gains significance when we use criticism to learn for the future in order to see how we can improve. This is my understanding of our work at the ACA," explains ACA President Margit Kraker in the preface of the Annual Report.

Follow-up enquiry: interactive and at a glance 

The ACA measures its impact by carring out a follow-up enquiry. To this end, it queries the audited entities whether they have implemented the ACA's recommendations. Through so-called follow-up audits, the ACA ascertains the actual implementation of selected recommendations on site. 

In the framework of its Annual Report, the ACA website includes an interactive graph on follow-up audits. All those interested can see at a glance whether, according to the information provided by the audited entities, the ACA's recommendations have been implemented. Filters can be used to search for individual reports or local authorities. For 2023, for example, the graph shows that the ACA is creating an impact: 83.9 percent of its recommendations have been either implemented, partially implemented, or their implementation has been promised. However, as in previous years, some of the ACA's key recommendations have also remained unheeded.

Interactive Graph on the Follow-up Enquiry 2024 (in German)