Public Debt Committee / Members

Background

During the 2006 PDWG meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, it was agreed to develop a PDWG Strategic Plan, bearing in mind that such tool was relevant for helping the Working Group members anticipate, face, and analyze the overall public debt problem around the world, and develop proposals for dealing with it.

Therefore, during this meeting a proposal was floored to all members in order to integrate a group of SAIs in charge of preparing the PDWG long-term strategic plan, which should include vision, mission, objectives as well as medium and long term goals. This volunteered group was integrated by the UK National Audit Office, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, the Office of the Auditor–General of Fiji Islands and the Superior Audit Office of Mexico.

A first draft was prepared by the PDWG Chair, who disseminated it among the SAIs of the United Kingdom, Canada and Fiji, who then submitted their feedback for improvement. Subsequently, with the SAI of Canada’s leadership, a final draft was prepared considering a timeframe of five years (2007 – 2012), which was presented to all PDWG members during its annual meeting held in Lisbon, Portugal in June 2007 for their consideration.

During the Lisbon meeting, certain adjustments were suggested to the PDWG Strategic Plan, whose final version was disseminated in September 2007 to all PDWG members and finally presented to the INTOSAI community during the XIX INCOSAI, held in Mexico City in November 2007.

In accordance to the INTOSAI Strategic Plan 2005 – 2010 (endorsed by the XVIII INCOSAI in Budapest in 2004), the Public Debt Working Group’s mandate falls within the structure of INTOSAI’s Goal 3, “Knowledge Sharing”, which is defined as to “encourage SAI cooperation, collaboration and continuous improvement through knowledge sharing, including providing benchmarks, conducting best practices studies and performing research on issues of mutual interest and concern”. Therefore, this INTOSAI document was used as a guide when designing the PDWG Strategic Plan 2007 – 2012, so that the PDWG goals might be achieved taking into consideration INTOSAI strategic planning.

The purpose of the PDWG Strategic Plan is to support the increasing demands and expectations faced by the SAI community when auditing public debt issues and influencing debt management practices. It is an ambitious strategic plan that will guide the PDWG activities in the years ahead.

The strategic plan lists a series of activities that the Working Group should undertake in order to become the “champion” of public debt auditing issues and promote sound debt management practices for the supreme audit institutions (SAIs) community during the 2007–12 period.

The strategic plan contains the Working Group’s Mission Statement, which defines its business and purpose—that is, what the Working Group expects to accomplish. It is followed by the Vision Statement, which describes what should be accomplished once the mission is achieved—that is, the outcome. Finally, the strategic plan includes two strategic goals that will support the mission and vision statements:

The plan also includes a description of specific activities that will support the achievement of these two goals over the next five years.