Investigating the effectiveness of the audit committee in the system of financial and performance control of Iranian metropolitan municipalities

The specialized committees and commissions of the Islamic councils of the city are the main component of financial and functional control in the municipalities and their effectiveness can provide the basis for improving this system and fulfilling the responsibility of the city management to the citizens and their legal and elected representatives. Therefore, in this study, indicators of effectiveness and areas of financial and performance control of the Municipal Audit Committee, the role of the audit committee in the implementation of financial and performance control of municipalities and the required competencies of the committee members were identified using the research literature. Then, the opinions of experts including external and internal auditors, municipal financial and economic deputies and financial controllers in the municipalities of Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz and Urmia were obtained using a questionnaire. The experts participating in this study, who were selected using purposive snowball sampling method, were 20 people in Tehran municipality and 20 people in other metropolitan municipalities. After performing the screen test, the weight of the indices is determined using the fuzzy hierarchical method. Finally, the research results were confirmed through structured interviews with 5 independent experts. Based on the results of this study, the formation of an audit committee under the Islamic Council of the city will improve financial and performance control in metropolitan municipalities. The results of this study also show that independence is the most important factor influencing the effectiveness of the  audit committee. lastly, the required qualifications of the members of the audit committee of metropolitan municipalities were determined.