Enhancing Public Value Through Thematic Auditing: Institutional Learning from BPK’s Experience

Authors: Dr. Tri Adhitya Basuki, Eko Prastiyo, The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (SAI Indonesia)

Introduction

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play an essential role in strengthening accountability and transparency within democratic governance systems. As public policy challenges become increasingly complex and interconnected, SAIs are expected not only to provide assurance, but also to contribute more directly to governance improvement and sustainable development outcomes. This expectation is reflected in INTOSAI-P 12, which emphasizes that SAIs should create value and deliver tangible benefits to citizens through stronger accountability, transparency, and public sector performance (INTOSAI, 2013). International discussions have also highlighted the growing need for SAIs to address cross-sectoral and long-term governance challenges, including sustainable development and governance resilience (INTOSAI Journal, 2021).

In Indonesia, this evolving environment encouraged the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) to adopt a thematic audit approach. Traditional audits focusing on individual entities often produce fragmented findings that are insufficient to explain broader systemic problems involving multiple institutions and interconnected risks. Thematic auditing was therefore developed to provide more integrated perspectives by combining findings across ministries, regions, and levels of government.

Aligned with national development priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thematic auditing has become an important strategic instrument within BPK’s audit framework. This paper discusses BPK’s experience in implementing thematic auditing and highlights institutional lessons related to systemic analysis, public value creation, and cross-sectoral governance.

From Entity-Based Audits to Systemic Analysis

The shift toward thematic auditing reflects a broader transformation in public sector auditing. While conventional audits provide valuable entity-level findings, they often struggle to capture governance challenges that span institutions, sectors, and levels of government. Thematic auditing adopts a whole-of-government perspective that enables auditors to assess policy coherence, institutional coordination, and cross-sectoral performance more comprehensively.

Within BPK, thematic audits are conducted outside the scope of financial audits and are guided by strategic themes established in audit policies and national priorities. Implemented through performance or compliance audits involving multiple audit units, their objective is to produce integrated conclusions while improving audit effectiveness and resources utilization (BPK, 2015).

Thematic auditing in Indonesia has evolved from sector-specific issues, such as economic resilience and infrastructure development, toward multidimensional challenges including environmental sustainability and climate resilience. This evolution reflects broader international trends toward governance-oriented and sustainability-focused auditing (Smith et al., 2021).

The initial implementation of thematic auditing presented several challenges. Limited auditor capacity and budget resources created risks of insufficient audit coverage for complex strategic programs involving multiple entities and sectors. In response, BPK strengthened audit design processes to ensure adequate coverage of key risks, stakeholders, and policy objectives. Coordination also proved challenging because thematic audits require collaboration among multiple audit units with different priorities and schedules. To address this issue, BPK established coordination mechanisms and strengthened leadership commitment to ensure methodological consistency and integrated conclusions.

Beyond these operational challenges, thematic auditing represents a shift from isolated organizational assessments toward systemic governance analysis. By integrating findings across institutions and sectors, thematic audits enable BPK to identify policy interdependencies, governance fragmentation, and implementation gaps that may not be visible through conventional audits.

Emerging Trends in Thematic Audits (2021–2025)

Between 2021 and 2025, thematic auditing in Indonesia expanded significantly in both scope and analytical orientation. Initially focused on post-pandemic economic recovery and human capital development, audit priorities gradually evolved toward infrastructure, governance transformation, regional equity, environmental sustainability, and climate-related risks.

By 2025, thematic audits were increasingly aligned with Indonesia’s National Medium-Term Development Plan 2025-2029 (2025–2029), particularly in food security and human capital development. This evolution demonstrates a broader transition from sectoral and output-oriented auditing toward more forward-looking evaluations that emphasize long-term development outcomes and policy sustainability. The integration of SDGs into thematic audit planning further reinforces the growing role of SAIs in supporting sustainable governance.

Thematic Audits: Public Value and Institutional Challenges

One of the main strengths of thematic auditing lies in its capacity to generate public value. Through integrated and cross-sectoral assessment, thematic audits support organizational learning, policy improvement, and governance enhancement,  contributing to better public services, accountability, and sustainable development outcomes.

This perspective aligns with Moore’s concept of public value (1995), INTOSAI-P 12, and ISSAI 300, which emphasize that public sector auditing should generate meaningful societal benefits through improved accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness (INTOSAI, 2019). International discussions also increasingly highlight the need for SAIs to move beyond compliance-oriented functions toward greater policy relevance and public impact (OECD/SIGMA, 2024). Consistent with this perspective, thematic audit planning should reflect not only institutional priorities and risks, but also stakeholder concerns and societal expectations.

Although audit topic selection remains within BPK’s mandate, thematic audit priorities are discussed through hearings with the House of Representatives (DPR), stakeholder focus group discussions, and stakeholder surveys. These mechanisms provide important inputs for identifying issues of public relevance and strategic importance.

Several institutional lessons have been identified from the implementation of thematic audits. Effective thematic auditing requires robust analytical planning and business case development, sustained coordination across audit units, improved sampling and audit coverage, and greater use of data analytics to support evidence-based conclusions. Another key lesson is the importance of identifying systemic and inter-institutional issues at the earliest stages of audit planning to strengthen policy relevance and audit coherence.

Despite these advantages, measuring audit impact remains challenging because the effects of audit recommendations are often indirect, gradual, and influenced by institutional and political factors. Nevertheless, previous studies suggest that audits contribute positively to accountability, financial disclosure, internal controls, and government performance (Imtinan & Hasibuan, 2021; Parwanto & Harto, 2017; Sayekti, 2015). Consequently, maximizing the public value of thematic auditing requires more comprehensive approaches to measuring both financial and non-financial impacts.

Future Directions: Integrating Cross-Sectoral Perspectives

Looking ahead, thematic auditing is expected to play an increasingly important role in addressing interconnected policy challenges. Priority areas such as energy, food, water security, and human capital development are increasingly understood as interdependent systems requiring coordinated policy responses. This reflects a gradual transition toward nexus-based auditing approaches in which policy interdependencies and systemic relationships are incorporated more explicitly into audit design and analysis.

Future improvements will likely focus on strengthening planning mechanisms capable of identifying system-wide issues from the outset, improving audit follow-up processes, expanding the use of data analytics, and enhancing coordination across audit units. Together, these developments will support the transition of thematic auditing from an emerging innovation into a more institutionalized and impact-oriented audit practice.

Implications for the Global SAI Community

BPK’s experience provides several lessons for the global SAI community. First, thematic auditing offers an effective pathway for moving beyond fragmented entity-level assessments toward more systemic evaluations of governance performance. Second, integrating cross-sectoral perspectives early in the audit cycle improves the coherence and policy relevance of audit findings. Third, stakeholder engagement mechanisms can enhance the relevance and legitimacy of thematic audits by ensuring that audit priorities reflect both governance risks and societal concerns. Fourth, stronger institutional coordination and clearly defined ownership are necessary to ensure that audit recommendations are translated into concrete policy improvements. Finally, the growing importance of data highlights the need for stronger analytical capabilities and institutional frameworks that support evidence-based and impact-oriented auditing.

Conclusion

BPK’s experience demonstrates that thematic auditing can significantly strengthen the relevance and strategic impact of public sector auditing. By enabling auditors to identify systemic issues, strengthen cross-sectoral analysis, and connect audit findings to broader governance outcomes, thematic auditing provides a more integrated approach to addressing complex public sector challenges.

At the same time, BPK’s implementation experience highlights several institutional lessons that require continuous strengthening, including more robust planning frameworks, stronger coordination mechanisms, enhanced analytical and data capabilities, and more comprehensive approaches to measuring audit impact.

As governance challenges become increasingly interconnected, thematic auditing offers SAIs an important opportunity to move beyond fragmented institutional assessments toward more integrated and policy-oriented evaluations. Through institutional learning, collaboration, and the incorporation of cross-sectoral perspectives, thematic auditing is becoming an increasingly strategic instrument for improving governance quality, supporting sustainable development, and generating public value in line with the evolving role of Supreme Audit Institutions.

References

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