The statistics of indicators for monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of internal audit in municipalities

The purpose of this research is to investigate, calculate, and explain the indicators for monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of internal audits in municipalities.

This research is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of data collection method. The statistical population of the research consisted of internal audit experts from various departments of Mashhad Municipality. Snowball sampling was utilized to collect information, and the opinion saturation criterion was employed as the sampling endpoint standard.

After conducting 21 in-depth interview sessions, information saturation was achieved. The theme analysis method was utilized to analyze the interviews, resulting in the identification of 39 indicators as the main themes of this research.

The results of the research showed that the most important themes of monitoring the effectiveness of internal audit in municipalities include the degree of elimination of weaknesses in the field of compliance audit, the degree of elimination of weaknesses in the field of operational audit, the degree of implementation of compliance audit proposals, the degree of satisfaction of senior internal audit managers, the degree of savings created as a result of the internal audit, the comments of professional associations, the implementation of operational audit, and the placement of operational audit in the organization chart of the municipality. The most important themes of monitoring the efficiency of internal audit in municipalities include the degree of systematization of internal audit instructions, the degree of mechanization of the audit process, the amount of training courses held for internal auditors, the level of internal auditors' capabilities, memberships and professional work certificates, the presence of internal audit agents in the regions, and the presence of internal audit agents in organizations and subsidiaries.