NIH did not consistently meet federal single audit requirements for extramural grants
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Inspector General. Office of Evaluation and Inspections, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, D.C. : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, December 2023
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Financial Audit Financing, Government Government Regulation Quality Assurance, Health Care Research Support as Topic United States National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Why OIG Did This Review. Single audits promote the efficient and effective use of Federal, extramural grant funding. Single audits are costly for the Federal government and time-consuming for grant recipients (e.g., universities, States and localities, for-profit Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award recipients). Therefore, it is important that they be effectively used to protect Federal funds. Compliance with single audit requirements is especially important for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as HHS is the largest grant-making agency in the Federal government. Within HHS, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards a significant number of these grants. Other Federal offices also rely on NIH to comply with single audit requirements. Previous HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) work found that NIH did not follow up on single audit findings within the required 6 months. This review revisits whether NIH is following up in a timely manner and evaluates NIH’s compliance with other single audit requirements. This is OIG’s first assessment of NIH’s oversight and use of single audits since some responsibilities transferred from OIG to HHS’s Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources (ASFR) in 2018. How OIG Did This Review. We collected and reviewed HHS and NIH policies on single audits. We also analyzed data and relevant documentation (e.g., single audit reports) for all management decision letters (MDLs) between September 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021. MDLs document NIH’s review of single audits and corresponding corrective action plans. We also interviewed staff within NIH and ASFR due to ASFR’s role in coordinating HHS’s, and as such NIH’s, single audit processes.
- Copyright:
- The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (28 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918751486306676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918751486306676