The article explores the issues of formation of government auditing in the Russian Federation. It discusses the concept “audit” in the Russian legislation and the emergence of the term “government audit”. The authors investigate the specifics of the government audit in the financial sector, carrying out of which is assigned to the bodies of external state financial control. The types of audit during the budget process are studied. The authors point to the transformation of the concept “government audit”, which currently includes not only the financial audit, but also the audit of other spheres of public activities. Finally, the need for professional training of government auditors is stressed and measures taken to achieve this are described. The necessity of conducting public audit of the system of state and municipal management as a direction for further development of government audit is assessed.