The external public audit, exercised through the structures within the Supreme Audit Institutions, plays one of the most important roles in ensuring the efficient management of public funds. The external public audit also contributes to the identification, combating and prevention of financial fraud, a contribution that can be evaluated by analysing deviations with direct financial implications on the budgets of public entities, additional income and damages, identified as a result of financial audit missions, since the purpose of the audit public is to identify deviations and, why not, even fraud involved in the management of public budgets, a fact which, over time, will lead to better management and allocation of resources in this sector as well as to the increase of citizens' trust in public institutions, as reputation is one of the most valuable assets.

The objective of this paper is to highlight the existence of direct proportionality between the quality of public audits, with the value of identified deviations, since the quality of external audits is directly proportional to the reduction of identified deviations, following the increasing compliance of public entities with the applicable legal framework, a fact which, over time, will lead to better management of funds, as well as, above all, to the fight against financial fraud.

To highlight this relationship as best as possible, we used the data contained in the Annual Public Reports on local public finances published by the Court of Accounts of Romania and the analysis of relevant factors contained in them such as additional income, damages, and referrals to criminal investigation bodies. The sample includes the territorial administrative units of the counties of Romania, as well as the territorial administrative units with the rank of the municipality within each county, less the territorial administrative unit of the municipality of Bucharest.

The results of the study revealed the fact that although, through its audit actions, the Court of Accounts of Romania identified deviations of the nature of additional income or damages with a constant value for the audited budget years, the number of referrals to the criminal investigation bodies is quite low and in a decrease.

In the paper, after reviewing the specialized literature, I used the qualitative methodology to synthesize the data regarding the identified entities and deviations is presented, then the results obtained are presented, and at the end of the paper the conclusions, future directions and limitations of the study are presented.