Here is your in-depth summary of the Chartered IIA’s Internal Audit Conference 2021.
Jump to areas of interest or take your time to absorb two days of conference insights in just over 10 minutes.
To get you started, here are some takeaways from the event:
- Be confident in the scepticism of your governance leaders
- Sample based testing is quickly becoming non-plausible
- ESG risks are increasing and internal audit is still playing catch up
- Climate disclosure assurance is necessary now
- Annual reports offer signs of looming corporate failure
- Diversity is part of our corporate social conscience
- An agile mindset is critical
- Recruit, develop and retain game-changing talent
- Innovate, embrace technology and adapt
- Complacency now signals the decline of internal audit
Key business priorities
Opening the conference, Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) told delegates that internal audit has: “so much ability to influence and correct business conduct from the inside to improve performance and to avert potential problems.”
Callanan emphasised the government’s intent for the post-pandemic economy to build back better, greener and with increased trust in business. Regarding the BEIS white paper restoring trust in audit and corporate governance, he set out three key roles of the new Audit and Assurance Policy:
- Demonstrate transparency of the assurance approach
- Enable investors to engage in assurance where necessary
- Extend assurance beyond financial statements
Check out our latest guidance on the role of audit and creation of an AAP. Assurance mapping is an essential step. Spreadsheets are a pragmatic start point. With maturity, consideration can be given to interactive GRC software to integrate assurance, risk and control data.
What next for internal audit?
Grab an energy bar! There’s no let-up. The decade ahead is going to be exciting, challenging and defining.…
