Audit Scotland's annual report for 2012/13

We have published our annual report for the 2012/13 year.

During 2012/13, on behalf of the Auditor General and the Accounts Commission, Audit Scotland was responsible for the audit of 214 public bodies with a total spend of more than £40 billion a year.

In the past year we also:

• published 26 performance and Best Value audits
• completed 100 per cent of annual financial audits on time
• reduced the cost of audit by 10 per cent for the last completed audit year
• and took the cumulative impact of the National Fraud Initiative to £85 million.

Our annual report sets out our progress toward achieving our vision of being a world-class audit organisation that improves the use of public money. It reports on our performance against our priorities of:

• carrying out relevant and timely audits of the way the public sector manages and spends money
• reporting our findings and conclusions in public
• and identifying risks, making clear and relevant recommendations for improvement, and following these up.

Our annual reporting this year includes an interactive electronic annual review. The review comes in PDF form, and contains instructions on using interactive features such as pop-up graphics and statistics on our performance and our organisation, and links to our work.

Our full annual report and accounts are also published, as well as our full suite of annual reports including equality outcomes, carbon scrutiny, and working with other countries. This year, we have also published a new transparency and quality report, in line with expectations of larger audit firms and organisations, and this sets out our structure, governance, pay and quality approach.