A brief explanation
The bodies subject to State audit
State audit applies to a broad range of bodies from the public sector, among which are government ministries, State institutions, local authorities, statutory corporations and government companies and additional agencies.
The scope of auditing in Israel is quite large. Paragraph 2(a) of the Basic Law: State Comptroller sets out the general framework, according to which the “Comptroller will audit the economy, the property, the finances, the obligations and the administration of the State, of Government Ministries, of all enterprises, institutions, or corporations of the State, of Local Authorities, and of bodies or other institutions which were defined by law as subject to audit by the State Comptroller.”
Paragraph 9 of the State Comptroller law, 5718-1958 [integrated version], delineates in detail the bodies that are subject to audit, according to different criteria. The audited bodies can be classified into two groups: those for which it suffices to verify that they meet the definitions and characteristics detailed in Paragraph 9 as criteria for constituting audited bodies, and those for which it is not enough that they meet the definitions and hence a special decision must be made by the State Comptroller or by the State Control Committee to apply the audit law to them. In addition, there are some bodies to which the State audit law is applied by law, by Knesset decision, or by an agreement between these bodies and the government.
In light of the above, the list of bodies subject to State audit is not a fixed list, but changes from time to time. New agencies are established while others cease to exist. The nature of the bodies may change, which leads to the situation that bodies that were once audited are no longer audited and the reverse. Additionally, specific decisions of the State Comptroller and the Knesset’s Control Committee regarding performance of an audit may result in changes in the list. Moreover, there are some bodies that are subject to audit by definition of the law, but which, in actual fact, are not audited, as well as bodies that are subject to audit but to which no audit has been applied.