Auditing and Investigative Activities of the Department of the Treasury

The internal audit function strengthens the management of Government programs and activities. Internal auditing activities should be centralized within departments to upgrade and stengthen internal auditing. Most of the Department of the Treasury's internal auditing and investigative activities are conducted by audit staffs located in 10 bureaus and by investigative staffs located in 4 bureaus. Treasury bureaus have devoted varying degrees of resources to internal audit and investigative activities with varying degrees of achievement. Several steps have been taken which could result in supervising department controls over the internal audit and investigative activities of the various bureaus. These steps present a dual management arrangement which is inherently subject to problems. The internal audit and investigative staffs cannot serve two masters. No Treasury mandate specifies the extent to which the Inspector General is to take the lead in department-wide efforts to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of bureau operations or eliminate fraud, abuse, waste, employee integrity problems, and mismanagement in Treasury programs. The resources to be provided to the Inspector General's office are so minimal that it is difficult to visualize such an office being an effective organization. For many years GAO has strongly supported the need for centralizing internal audit activities at the highest level in a Federal department. In this regard, the further the internal audit organization is removed from officials directly responsible for programs and operations, the more the internal audit component can be independent and objective.