Local government auditing in Portugal

The Portuguese local government is subject to several controls that have evolved substantially throughout the last decades. This chapter offers a summary of the current state of these controls, particularly focussing on municipalities. The political parties of the opposition who sit in the Executive Board monitor all decisions. The Assembly exerts supervision and political control. The central government supervises legal and financial activities through a finance inspection body. The Court of Audit has a technical and jurisdictional control. Finally, the external auditor gives an opinion on the true and fair view of the municipality’s accounts, comprising both budgetary and financial statements. Because public financial management still mainly focusses on the (inputs-based) budget, conformity auditing takes precedence over other types of control.