Problems and Prospects for the Development of the Internal State Audit in Ukraine

As a result of the reforms carried out in previous years, a two-tier system of public finance control was created in Ukraine, consisting of an external independent audit and state internal financial control. Recent changes in the current legislation and the announced plan for further transformations in the field of public finance control require analysis of the effectiveness of previous reforms and the appropriateness of changing the development vector of the relevant state institutions. The aim of the article is a retrospective analysis of the effectiveness of the implementation of the internal state audit function in Ukraine, the identification of problems and prospects for its development based on a systematic approach. The analysis of regulatory acts in the field of public finance control proves that the subsystem of state internal financial control is developing much more actively than the subsystem of external control. In the absence of a single concept for the development of these subsystems, a certain inconsistency of their functioning has been observed. The main achievements in the implementation of reforms in the government sector, carried out with the support of various international organizations, have been characterized. It has been determined that despite a long period of development of organizational and methodological support for the functioning of internal audit units in the public sector, as well as intensive training of employees, the State Audit Service of Ukraine continues to record financial irregularities, the list and amount of which remain unchanged from year to year. It has been substantiated that the described situation bears signs of inconsistency of the efforts made with the actual results of the reform in the internal state audit sphere. The main reasons are the following: low salaries of employees of internal audit units that do not meet the necessary professional competencies and experience; widespread violation of the independence principle of internal state auditors, negatively affecting their ability to perform significant tasks; lack of accessible training and advanced training combining theoretical knowledge and practical cases. The practical significance of the study is to determine the prospects for the further development of the internal state audit function, to ensure the effectiveness of which a systematic approach should be applied.