Nick Curle, Head of Audit Strategy and Change at Barclays Internal Audit shares his experiences of innovations in auditing with Liz Sandwith, Chief Professional Practices Advisor for the Chartered IIA.

“Innovation opportunities are huge. Our start point remains defined and fixed [assurance to the audit committee] and our output remains as a report in some form to that committee” says Curle.

He adds: “But everything in between, precisely what we do and definitely how we go about it are all up for grabs.”

Curle highlights two of significant adaptions: agile auditing and improved data analytics. In respect to the latter, touching on the potential for automation and use of artificial intelligence, he says “now we can start to prove causal relationships and start to predict risk events and losses…spotting the thing that is going to go wrong rather than helping to find reasons why something went wrong.”

He talks in detail about agile, executing audits in a more responsive manner in terms of planning, reporting findings and mindset to change. He also references adopting a typical agile approach of daily stand ups, scrums, timely communications and learning fast.

The discussion touches on the culture of a team, attracting and retaining talent, stakeholder relationships and the benefits of agile for small internal audit functions.

His message to audit leaders is “why wouldn’t you want to try” agile auditing, “don’t get hung up on the methodology” and if something doesn’t work, learn from that and adapt.…