Tõnis Saar has been the Director of the National Audit Office or its chief of staff since August 2004 when he returned from London where he studied for his master's degree in Business Management. However, he joined the National Audit Office in 2000.
Tõnis was born on 7 March 1978 in Paide and he graduated from Paide Upper Secondary School in 1996. He then went to study Business Administration in the Tallinn University of Technology and graduated in 2000 after specialising in accounting and financial management.
He started his working life in the international audit firm KPMG Estonia where he worked as an auditor's assistant in the Department of Industry and Construction for two years in addition to his studies. His was responsible for planning financial and conducting audits in the areas of furniture, timber and cement industry and construction.
In 2000 he started working as the audit specialist in the Financial Audit Department of the National Audit Office and soon became an audit manager who coordinated financial audits in the areas of education, culture and national defense. He was also in charge of auditing state-owned companies.
In spring 2003 Tõnis Saar worked on the tasks of strategic planning, audit reporting and development of the methodology of the National Audit Office and on the development of the National Audit Office’s strategy for the years 2004 to 2008 as the adviser to the Auditor General. He also analysed the need to amend the State Budget Act and the opportunities to create a new channel to make the materials of the National Audit Office more efficient – a committee of the Riigikogu, whose task would be to discuss the reports of the National Audit Office and use them to exercise supervision over the activities of executive power. Such a committee was created in 2004.
Tõnis Saar continued his education in the City University in London from 2003 to 2004 and wrote his thesis on the subject Leadership and Storytelling.
After taking the post of director, Tõnis Saar has been responsible for guaranteeing the work of the Auditor General, the sufficiency of the National Audit Office’s budget and the support services required for the work of the National Audit Office. He is in charge of the Legal Service, Methodology, Planning and Analysis Service, Personnel Service, Communication Service, Accounting Service, Information and Communication Technology Service, International Relations Service and Administrative Service.
Tõnis is also the one who carried out the structural reform of the National Audit Office in the end of 2004 and in addition to his principal job, he was also the acting director of the audit of an audit department in 2005 where he coordinated audits in the area of government of the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Justice.
Tõnis himself has set a very ambitious goals: he wants the National Audit Office to be an internationally recognised quality audit organisation whose main assets are its people. “We should have professionals working here and they should stay here for at least ten years as becoming a professional in auditing is a very long process. Our people have to know what they're talking about, as the National Audit Office is not the place where people learn about elementary things both in respect of audits and the public sector. This means that we have to invest in people who have potential,” he says.
The director, who himself has many years of experience in auditing, also thinks that the National Audit Office should start paying more attention to the monetary dimension in its audit, i.e. analyse whether the values obtained for the money are optimal. “Auditing itself cannot be our goal, we have to try and unleash positive changes. This means that we have to understand actual problems and communicate, communicate and communicate. The work of an auditor is not done once a written report has been completed."
Tõnis Saar has also become the general coordinator of the international relations of the National Audit Office. He also creates connections between the National Audit Office and the highest audit authorities of other European Union countries.
In 2007 Saar successfully organised the run of the National Audit Office as a candidate for the position of the leader of the largest working group of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions INTOSAI – the Working Group on Environmental Auditing or WGEA.
The secretariat of the WGEA is located by the National Audit Office and managed by Tõnis Saar in addition to his job as the director.
“Managing the Working Group on Environmental Auditing is very important in introducing Estonia in the rest of the world. 70 countries have joined the group and their representatives at least know where Estonia is and what the Estonian National Audit Office is. I no longer have to explain my origin to these people like I recently had to do on the border of Kenya. They didn't ask me WHERE Estonia was, the asked me WHAT it was.
Tõnis is very happy that our leadership of the WGEA shows the world that small countries and the very small Estonian National Audit Office are able to lead large international working groups. The effort it took has also developed the support service of the National Audit Office and offered new opportunities to the audit side, because environmental auditors in particular are now able to spread their knowledge around the world benefit from the experience of other countries in return.
The Auditor General has recognised the work of Tõnis Saar in the National Audit Office with the medal awarded to statesmen and public figures in Estonia and the employees of the National Audit Office for special merit or exceptional work in the development of the National Audit Office and also to heads of supreme audit institutions of foreign countries and their international organisations, and also international audit institutions in recognition of their achievements.
Tõnis Saar is a certified trainer of the INTOSAI development initiative IDI, he has worked on two-week training projects in Europe and organised environmental workshops in Asia, Africa and Europe. These projects have given him work experience in countries like Norway, the Czech Republic, Poland, Cyprus and Malaysia with 13 auditors of former European Union candidate states.
“Being open to the world is extremely important,” admits Tõnis. “The National Audit Office received a lot of assistance and knowledge from its foreign partners in the 1990s and at the start of the 2000s, and now it’s our time to contribute to the world and give back."
Tõnis has received invitations from the supreme audit institutions of many countries to visit them and perform a peer review or an analysis of work and quality. “It is a great honour for me personally and for the National Audit Office. It shows that we are pretty good if others invite us over to assess their work."
For a long time Tõnis Saar has been the representative of the National Audit Office in the professional committee of auditors; which organises examinations of all auditors who wish to become certified.
Tõnis Saar has a daughter. In his free time he likes working in his garden and collecting good wines, which he is happy to share with his friends.