Determinants of the audit application by forest companies

The article presents the essence and importance of internal audit as well as the incentives to use it in forest companies. The research utilizes the database of enterprises, which submitted their offers in the process of the best bid selection during the procedures of public procurement in the field of forestry (forest management, forest protection including fire prevention, timber harvest and loggong, soil preparation, nursery works and seed collection) for years 2012−2016 in Regional Directorate of the State Forest in Gdańsk (N Poland). The database consisted of 103 firms that participated in 75 tender procedures in 15 forest districts. Basing on the analysis of tenders for forest services, an activity of forest companies was assessed, with the emphasis on companies fulfilling the requirements of the Reliable Forest Enterprise certification. Furthermore, the tenders criteria were evaluated taking into account their number, type and weight. In the analyzed procedures following criteria were used: price, execution of works only by employed staff (logging and extraction, tree cutters and machinery operators as well as supervisors), fulfilling the requirements of Reliable Forest Enterprise certificate, supervisor with forestry education, experience of the company (value of completed services), and ownership of specialized equipment (multi−task machinery, horses). Certain weights were attributed to all of the above mentioned criteria. The analysis of companies activity showed, that the noticeable decrease in number of offers for tenders in 2016 is a reaction to a new tender criterion – Reliable Forest Enterprise certificate, with the assumed weight of 20%. Another relatively new criterion was the condition, that all persons used to carry out the forest works had to be contractually employed by the company. Both these criteria decreased the weight of price criterion by average 30% comparing to previous years. The presence of these new criteria increased the number of non−price criteria by average of 1 comparing to previous years, and contributed to the unification of non−price criteria used in Regional Directorate of the State Forest in Gdańsk