External Quality Assessment aka Auditing the Auditor

To comply with Internal Auditing professional body standards and those of other relevant bodies, external assessments must be conducted at least once every five years by a qualified, independent assessor or assessment team from outside the organisation.

Our experienced team are happy to undertake such reviews and to benchmark your service offering and delivery against recognised best practice.

Just as our internal audit delivery is engagement as opposed to desk based, so is our external quality assessment.  We go behind the application of the standard operating procedures as stated in the audit manual to engage with those for whom internal audit delivers a service namely:

• The Board
• The Audit and Risk Committee
• The Executive
• The Operational Staff
• The funders

This will be by way of interviews, completion of structured questionnaires, workshops, etc.  These activities will give rise to an evidence based draft report that we will present as a discussion document and will finalise to take account of additional evidence and/or input.

In doing this, we seek to provide assurance that the internal audit service you provide is identifying and meeting stakeholders need in a value for money fashion, that assurances are both relevant and timely and that internal audit truly is operating as a service to assist the achievement of objectives.  We will also consider, where appropriate, the extent to which there is compliance with the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards

All such exercises will be led by Geraldine Fahy who has experience of delivering such reviews throughout Ireland.