new-assurance-challenges-facing-chief-audit-executives

New Assurance Challenges Facing Chief Audit Executivesby Simon D'ArcyExecutive Summary• Internal audit’s raison d’être is to provide assurance on the effectiveness of the management andcontrol of significant risks.• Assurance can only ever be reasonable but not absolute—continuing corporate failure due toinadequate risk management and control challenges the value of such reasonable assurance.• Chief audit executives can use objective criteria to demonstrate the integrity of their reasonableassurance propositions.• Objective criteria include completeness, frequency, future orientation, explicitness, objectivity, andsubject matter knowledge.• A key challenge for CAEs is that of a shift of mindset away from just doing audits, to auditing actuallyproviding assurance of demonstrable integrity.IntroductionLooking back over the last 15 to 20 years, it does seem that at one time the biggest challenge facing theprofession of internal auditing was whether the unique scope and contribution of internal audit was clearlydefined, understood, or indeed actually needed. Much of the thought leadership around internal auditing in1recent years has focused on this challenge. Two publications by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2007, and a2heads of internal audit summit “The Future of Internal Auditing Starts Here” in May 2008 jointly facilitated bythe Institute of Internal Auditors and Deloitte, have all concluded that internal audit’s primary role is clearlyto provide ...