Chinese Government Environmental Audit Innovation

The strategy of sustainable development,including the guideline,program and action plan,serves as a general blueprint for government to coordinate the whole nation's economic and social development,and achieve environmental protection,economic promotion and social development.It has become a consensus as well as a commitment for the international community to make up the strategy of sustainable development and put it into practice,just as what Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development emphasizes,“Each country carries primary responsibility for its economic and social development,and the role of its domestic policy and strategy cannot be overemphasized.” Government is the maker and executor of one country's strategy of sustainable development.Therefore,whether the strategy is scientific and effective or not depends on the accountability of a government.As an important part of the national governance,government audit mainly exerts supervision on government performance,which has great impact on constitution and implementation of the strategy.Meanwhile,as environmental issue is essential and fundamental for sustainable development,environmental audit is more important for the steady implementation of the strategy.As far as each country is concerned,environmental audit works as an important method to promote implementation of the strategy,and appraises the potential troubles hidden in economic and social development in the way of supporting policy-making,appraising policy,protecting interests and restricting power,so as to provide fundamental and reliable information for formulating appropriate strategy of sustainable development.Furthermore,environmental audit examines and supervises the implementation and effect of the relevant laws,regulations and policies,provides reasonable recommendations for government and assures the effective implementation of the strategy.Moreover,environmental audit examines and supervises the environmental management by government,rectifies the inappropriate,ineffective or low effective actions of government and its body,promotes government accountability,facilitates the construction and improvement of the national environmental management system.However,along with the rapid economic and social development and the further implementation of the strategy,environmental audit is facing great challenges,such as: when the government environmental management field is widening,and the management action becomes diversified,how to broaden the environmental audit scope,effectively select the environmental audit type,and deepen the environmental audit method and techniques;when the environmental issue becomes international,how to play the role of SAI in the future global environmental management,and strengthen the international cooperation in environmental audit;when the environmental issue becomes complicated,how to enhance the capacity building of audit institution and strengthen the cooperation between audit institution and the external part.Meanwhile,along with the development of environmental audit,some of its problems have also appeared,such as the insufficiency of the jurisdiction of audit institution,the non-quantifiable appraising factors,the lack of guidance and standards of environmental audit,and auditors lacking professional knowledge and skills.Based on these challenges and problems above,the current mode of environmental audit has to be innovated effectively and thoroughly.Specifically,it is to by building a new mode of environmental audit by the government,bring the new combination of the factors of theory system,organizational system,target system,operating system,and security system into it,and to the greatest extent increase its “production capability”.To build this more efficient mode,the following measures shall be taken: in the aspect of theory system,that with solid basic theory,systematic practical research,high prospective sense shall be built;in the aspect of organizational system,the mechanism system with organizational independence and multivariate ordination,the human resource system with strong professional competence and systematic organizational legal system shall be built,and the function shall be extended and perfected;in the aspect of target system,the target and the task shall be defined,based on which the functional pathway,ideas and emphases shall be extend;in the aspect of operating system,with strategic target and customers need deemed as the guide,the program organizational mode shall be innovated under the thorough quality control,and the process shall be reengineered;in the aspect of security system,that with sound legal regulations,perfect audit standards and sophisticated audit techniques shall be built.The framework of this paper consists of five parts:The first part illustrates the relationship between the sustainable development and government environmental audit,introduces the birth and development of government environmental audit based on sustainable development,and how government environmental audit promotes sustainable development.This part emphasizes that the birth and development of government environmental audit is an inevitable choice for the implementation of the idea and strategy of sustainable development,and also an important tool to promote the sustainable economic and social development.Currently the need for sustainable economic and social development put forward new requirements for the development of government environmental audit.The second part makes a general introduction to Chinese government's environmental audit,including its law basis,main contents the importance in promoting the implementation of the strategy of sustainable development,and the current external environment as well as its new requirements to audit institutions.The third part illustrates the current main problems in Chinese government's environmental audit,mainly including: the basic theoretic research of government environmental audit is week,the practical research is not systematic or prospective;the subject structure of government environmental audit is single and the legal power is insufficient;the audit scope is narrow,the performance audit is weakened,and the use of the achievement is insufficient;the policy-making system is relatively exclusive,the executing system is divided and the supervising system is weak;the legal standards is lacking,the management system is inefficient and the technique support is missing.Those problems require a system structural innovation of Chinese government's environmental audit.The fourth part introduces some successful experience of conducting environmental audit in other countries,and summarizes some experience that could be learned by China in achieving innovations in theory system,organizational system,operating system,target system and security system of government environmental audit.It mainly includes: with achieving equitable distribution of environmental interests as the aim,the theoretic research of environmental audit shall be systematic and diversified,the subject of environmental audit shall be diversified,with the public widely involved and the audit team of high professional level;environmental audit shall concern government accountability,pay more attention to appraise the implementation of environmental policy,and emphasize to promote the maximization of the audit effect by cooperating with council,government departments and stakeholders;the program organizational mode shall be more flattened and based on elasticity,with the thorough quality control on the program;the legal framework of environmental audit is perfect,the responsibility of environmental management is clear and the audit method system is relatively perfect,etc.The fifth part illustrates the strategy and main measures of innovation in Chinese government's environmental audit.Those in the theory system include: structuring a professional team to research on the theory of government environmental audit,strengthening the guidance to the theory research,and working harder on the research of the focus fields of government environmental audit.Those in the organizational system include: establishing the mechanism system with organizational independence and multivariate ordination,the human resource system with strong professional competence and systematic organizational legal system,and extending and perfecting the function.Those in the target system include: defining the target and the task,based on which extending the functional pathway,ideas and emphases.Those in the operating system include: with customers need deemed as the guide,innovating the program organizational mode under the thorough quality control,and reengineering the process.Those in the security system include: structuring an adequate legal system,a scientific and perfect standard system,and a sophisticated technical method system.