Heads of Internal Audit Forums - previous events

Trust and transparency - our event in Spring 2023

Thanks to those Heads of Internal Audit who attended our Spring Forum on the topic of ‘Trust and Transparency. In this session, our four speakers discussed the challenges and opportunities facing today’s organisations in four key areas where the demand for more data and information continues to grow:

Katie Griffin discussed current expectations from the outcomes of the recent UK government consultation ‘Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance’. She shared our views on the key questions for Internal Auditors in key areas of change:

1. Enhanced internal control requirements: Are controls adequately documented across the whole of the COSO framework? Are assurance plans in place for the board to report?
2. The Audit & Assurance Policy: Have you defined your ‘universe’ of reported information? Have you assessed the sufficiency of assurance?
3. Fraud disclosures: Do you have a documented fraud risk assessment? Are your controls for fraud prevention and detection effective?

Laura Kelly gave an overview of the complex and evolving global landscape of sustainability reporting requirements and guidelines. She shared our views on the direction of travel towards integrated reporting and the challenges facing organisations as they seek to enhance the quality and consistency of data and the associated processes and controls. Finally, she considered the important role for Internal Auditors in providing confidence through assurance and being agitators for change in driving forwards their organisation's sustainability strategy.

John Davies shared views on the growing public and regulatory pressure to increase transparency in tax affairs - covering disclosures around strategy, governance and controls as well as data related to sustainability and other reporting requirements. He discussed the potential impact of further developments in the global tax landscape as more and more countries look to promote harmony as they incentivise ESG initiatives. Internal Auditors have a key role to play in ensuring that organisations have the right levels of governance, capacity and capability and processes and controls to ensure the integrity and consistency of the complex tax requirements.

Katy Bennett provided a useful summary of why Diversity, Equality and Inclusion reporting requires special focus against a backdrop of an increasingly complex reporting landscape and rising public, employee and investor interest in matters of social impact. She outlined our model for best practice reporting; highlighting the importance of considered narratives to articulate the organisational context and goals. Internal Auditors undoubtedly have a role to play in raising awareness of the risks and opportunities to build trust associated with this drive for transparency.

Our next event will cover ‘Technology transformed’ and is scheduled for 9.30am on Tuesday 4th July. Please hold the date and registration details will follow soon.

A risk for our times - the role of Internal Audit in tackling fraud

Research shows that the risk of fraud rose last year during the COVID-19 crisis, exacerbated by the general move to working from home. The ESG agenda is also introducing new threats and threat actors, whilst the BEIS consultation paper has outlined increased expectations of directors and how they address fraud risk. Yet, even with these significant changes to the risk landscape, our experience is that few organisations undertake dedicated fraud risk assessments. 

Internal Audit has a key role to play in helping the business protect itself against an area of risk that isn’t well understood and yet is on the increase. In this session, we will explore:

• The role that each of the Lines of Defence should play, and ways that Internal Audit can act as a strategic partner to the business, challenging the 1st and 2nd lines to focus on and prioritise fraud risk;
• How the broad range of fraud risks requires wider responsibility to be taken, beyond the finance function who are often the principal gatekeepers and;
• Why HIAs need to have fraud risk on the audit plan, looking at areas of potential weakness where systems could be exploited and flagging these in good time to the business.

Fit for the future - the role of Internal Audit in creating a resilient and sustainable business

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that businesses will have to adapt and evolve their strategy and operating model to survive and to thrive. For some, this will be about capturing the benefits from changes in working practices; for others the shift may be more fundamental.

It's hard to predict even a few days ahead at the moment, let alone a few months, but looking to July, where will organisations have got to on their journey out of lockdown? How will their business priorities and strategies have changed and how resilient will they be to ongoing operational and economic uncertainty?

Internal Audit has a key role to play in helping create a resilient and sustainable business that has adapted to the impacts of COVID-19.

In this session we explored:

• The key operational risks and issues caused by COVID-19, focusing on the six critical areas where there is likely to be an ongoing change in risk profile - workforce, real estate, financial situation, customers, supply chain, new technologies/cyber.
• The role of Internal Audit in building organisational resilience.
• How Internal Audit can seize the opportunity to become more agile and responsive, deploying relevant and tech-enabled audit activity and building a stronger, 'future fit' function that is a true business partner.

Beyond the walls: auditing the extended enterprise

Practical insights to help you provide effective assurance over third party risks

The collapse of high profile organisations has placed the role of assurance providers firmly in the spotlight and raised concerns about the failure to act on risks and problems in a timely and appropriate way. The increased complexity of modern supply chains means risk professionals are being challenged as never before to establish effective oversight of these interconnected business processes.

Internal audit has a crucial role to play in providing assurance around third-party risk. At a basic level the organisation must have confidence in the suppliers with which it has direct contractual arrangements. However, as the business environment necessitates evermore distributed models, organisations also need to pay attention to the potential risk created by those further along the supply chain – fourth and even fifth parties who provide increasingly critical services to their third parties and may well have direct access to their customer data.

In this session we explored:

• the potential risks and required responses that sit across a third party service delivery life cycle, focusing on key areas including:
      - bid/selection/contracting
      - transition/delivery/monitoring
      - review/negotiation/exit
• the challenge for Internal Audit in deciding how far down the supply chain they should extend
• the opportunity for Internal Audit to play a key role in proactively helping to horizon scan, identify emerging risks and help the board and senior management meet their growing responsibility to get ahead of risk events
• what needs to be in place to adequately address risks created by an increasingly extended enterprise