This report suggests concrete steps Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts can take to adapt its own strategies, approaches and audit programming to provide valuable insight and foresight to policy makers in the centre of government.

- Foreword - Acronyms and abbreviations - Executive summary - Strengthening the contributions of TCU to good governance in Brazil - Auditing for greater policy coherence in Brazil - Auditing for more strategic and sustainable budgeting in Brazil - Auditing for more robust internal control and risk management systems - Auditing for more effective government-wide monitoring and evaluation - Glossary

Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts, the Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), is seeking to go beyond its traditional oversight role and help improve policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. This report identifies ways TCU can achieve this by applying principles of good governance to areas such policy coherence, strategic and long-term budgeting, internal control and risk management, and monitoring and evaluation. It suggests concrete steps TCU can take to adapt its own strategies, approaches and audit programming to provide valuable insight and foresight to policy makers in the centre of government. In this way, it can help ensure that policies and programmes are forward looking and based on evidence.

The Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) is Brazil's "leading government audit institution"; it is the only one dealing exclusively with auditing. The TCU is part of the federal legislative branch, which the TCU assists in its constitutional attribution of overseeing the government finances (Article 71 of the Federal Constitution). Grosso modo, its structure includes, on one side, a professional corps with 1,576 auditors and, on the other, a college of nine judges called ministers that decide on cases. These ministers are chosen by Congress (six) and by the president (three, upon confirmation by the Senate). The requirements for becoming a member are rather loose: the appointees need only be between 35 and 65 years of age, have good reputation and knowledge on a number of topics, and ten years of work experience in a relevant area (Art. 73, §1). Observers say they usually are at the height or the end of their political career when chosen to join the TCU. Further, nominations are highly politicised. With all that, the connections to politics that most of its ministers have – five in the current composition have run for office – seem to be a perfect formula for partisan dominance of the Tribunal. However, the TCU has shown relative independence from daily politics. The book attempts at demonstrating how.

This report suggests concrete steps Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts can take to adapt its own strategies, approaches and audit programming to provide valuable insight and foresight to policy makers in the centre of government.

This report assesses the role of Brazil's Supreme Audit Institution – the Federal Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Contas da União or TCU) – in enhancing accountability and informing decision making within the federal government.

This report assesses the role of Brazil's Supreme Audit Institution – the Federal Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Contas da União or TCU) – in enhancing accountability and informing decision making within the federal government.