For the fragrance of the earth

The audit system of Jiangsu Province is based on research-based auditing

The third in a series to promote audit quality improvement

For the fragrance of the earth

"As of now, 16 of the city's 42 problems have been rectified and implemented, and 28 of the 72 rectification measures have been implemented." A few days ago, at a dispatch meeting for the rectification of prominent problems in the ecological environment involving soil in a certain city, the municipal ecological and environmental bureau reported in detail on the rectification of the provincial soil pollution prevention and control special audit investigation feedback problems.

From February to May 2021, according to the unified arrangement of the Jiangsu Provincial Audit Office, the Suqian Municipal Audit Bureau carried out a special audit investigation on the prevention and control of soil pollution in a city, and issued an audit investigation report in July, pointing out the existence of problems and proposing audit recommendations.

Consolidate the foundation of soil audit

"Soil pollution audit is a new audit field, and the audit team should carry out the research-based audit concept throughout to ensure high-quality and efficient completion of audit tasks." This is a clear request put forward by Shen Jiashan, secretary of the party group and director of the Suqian Municipal Audit Bureau, before the audit team enters the point.

The goal is set, and the action must follow. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the audit, the Suqian Municipal Audit Bureau made full preparations before the audit. 6 county (district) resource and environmental audit backbones and 1 municipal resource and planning bureau business personnel were dispatched, 1 geographic surveying and mapping engineer was hired, and an audit team of 15 people was formed to build a model of "government + internal + society" joint audit.

Since the special audit of soil pollution prevention and control involves a wide range of aspects and is highly professional, in order to ensure that the review is in-depth and thorough, the Suqian Municipal Audit Bureau has done two homework: business training and pre-trial investigation. On the one hand, strengthen learning, timely distribute the policy documents issued by the Provincial Audit Office to auditors, and actively participate in the video training meeting of the province's special investigation on soil pollution prevention and control to strengthen the understanding of relevant laws and regulations and work requirements. On the other hand, we have strengthened communication and exchanges, and repeatedly carried out pre-trial investigations in the ecological environment, resource regulations, agriculture and rural areas of the audited areas, identified the direction of auditing, and clarified the ideas of auditing work.

"We have discussed and exchanged with the Bureau's Laws and Regulations Trial Department 6 times, and constantly polished and improved the audit implementation plan." Chen Qinqin, deputy head of the audit team, said that in the end, the group clearly took the prevention and control of agricultural land pollution, the prevention and control of construction land pollution, soil pollution monitoring, soil pollution prevention and protection as the focus of the audit, and carried out the division of tasks according to personal professional expertise to ensure that the audit work was carried out in an orderly manner.

Lifting the veil on soil control

The audited area is a large industrial city in Jiangsu, and the soil pollution investigation is extensive. How to accurately identify problems and improve audit efficiency? The whole process guidance of the Provincial Audit Office solved a major problem faced by the Suqian audit team.

"The electronic data of the detailed soil survey of agricultural land has been issued, and the audit teams are requested to verify and collect evidence." "Please pay attention to the disposal of agricultural products in various places that exceed the standard." Every day, the special exchange group of soil pollution prevention and control audit work in the province will issue different work reminders. In the audit, if the laws and regulations are not clear or there are differences in understanding, the audit team will also consult the audit team of the provincial office and hire experts in a timely manner.

Up and down the game, the work is more orderly. Auditors make full use of the "data analysis + on-site verification" method to increase the intensity of data analysis and lock in suspicious points. When inquiring about the city's soil environment information system, it was found that the land plot of a garbage treatment plant in a certain district has been in the state of "starting to investigate" in the system registration.

"There must be another reason for the long-term failure to complete the soil survey." Project lead judge Wu Suwei said that the auditor's unique professional intuition guided her to investigate the reasons.

After the on-site investigation, the auditors learned that although the garbage treatment plant has been closed for 19 years, the garbage that was previously piled up has not been treated, resulting in the staff being unable to complete the follow-up soil investigation. After verification, the auditors reported the relevant situation to the Provincial Audit Office in a timely manner. After receiving the audit feedback, the local government also formulated a timely implementation plan for the removal of garbage and implemented special funds for landfill remediation projects.

The audit of the performance of funds and project construction operation is the "housekeeping skill" of auditors. The auditors grasped the flow of funds to this main line, and promptly discovered and pointed out "problems such as the failure to implement the main responsibility of polluters, the idleness of some soil pollution prevention and control funds, and the timely allocation of provincial special funds".

Do a good job of auditing the second half of the article

Lasting nearly three months, the Suqian audit team focused on the on-site audit of 9 municipal departments, 11 counties (cities) districts, 44 townships (streets), 52 enterprises, and 20 soil pollution prevention and control projects in the city.

After the on-site audit, the audit report is put on the agenda. In order to further improve the quality of the audit report, the Provincial Audit Office "went through" the problems found by the Suqian group one by one, fully discussed the problem characterization, factual expression, processing basis, audit recommendations, etc., and after layers of review, finally formed a draft audit report that revealed 42 problems in soil pollution in the city.

"The problems found by the audit team are objective and true, and we have done a comprehensive and in-depth physical examination of the soil in our city, and we have accepted them all according to the order." The relevant leaders of the local government said after receiving the draft audit report for solicitation of comments.

At the same time, the city acted quickly to initiate rectification in response to the problems found by the audit. Specially study and formulate the "Work Plan for rectification of soil pollution prevention and control special audit feedback problems", formulate 72 specific measures for 42 problems, each of which clarifies the rectification requirements, rectification time limits and responsible units, and successively formulates and implements the "Notice on Accelerating the Investigation of Hidden Dangers in Key Soil Pollution Supervision Units in Our City" and "Notice on the Systematic Implementation of Soil Pollution Risk Prevention and Control and Restoration of Construction Land" and other documents, taking rectification as an opportunity to implement details, learn from each other, and continuously improve the level of soil pollution prevention and control.

At present, the problems such as the lack of risk control of some polluted plots in the city have been rectified in place, and the rectification of other 26 problems is being carried out in an orderly manner. "In the next step, we will further do a good job in rectifying and supervising the problems found in the audit, promote the implementation of the soil environmental protection system, promote the construction of ecological civilization in our province, and give full play to the important role of auditing in the party and state governance system." Wang Xinming, head of the audit team, said. (Chen Qinqin, Gu Peipei)

Audit Advocacy Centre, National Audit Office

Audit Office of Jiangsu Province

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