The National Audit Office has launched a new edition of its Audit Committee Handbook. While it is primarily intended for audit committees of government organisations, other audit committee members may find it useful.
Alongside the Audit Committee Handbook there is a self-assessment checklist and a guide to “adding value”. The latter includes some practices that many audit committees would consider to be fairly routine or standard. However, it does suggest some practices that are less common but would certainly add value such as:
- calling appropriate business heads to meetings to explain how they are delivering on their agreed actions or on risks for which they are responsible; and
- improving communication between audit committee chairs and auditors with meetings outside of the formal committee meetings.
A blog on changes in the public sector and not-for-profits - colleges, academies, housing associations, charities, social enterprise etc. News about finance, governance, regulation etc plus views on themes such as reform, efficiency and value-for-money.
The NAO does some excellent work - really pushing the boundaries of the auditor's role and making it a more constructive and forward-looking activity. As an example, see last summer's report on KPIs for Corporate Services that was produced jointly with the other external audit bodies - the Audit Commission and its counterparts in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland.
ReplyDelete