Assurance that counts

Who It's For

Board members, audit committee members and senior leaders in public service

Overview

This programme brings the full Audit and Assurance topic together in a half day for boards and leaders who need to know, not hope. It moves from the difference between reassurance and evidence, through the Three Lines Model, COSO and the annual governance statement, the Global Internal Audit Standards and CIPFA's guidance on audit committees, into assurance mapping, board assurance frameworks, counter fraud under the failure to prevent fraud offence, and speaking up as a source of assurance. Cases from the Post Office Horizon scandal to Croydon and Wirecard run throughout, and a capstone applies everything to Betsi Cadwaladr, Thurrock and Kids Company.

Aims

The aim is to develop board members, audit committee members and senior leaders into confident stewards of assurance, able to read the whole system from controls and audit to fraud and voice, and to ask the questions that surface problems while there is still time to act.

In summary, you will be able to:

1. 1Explain how controls, the three lines, internal audit, the audit committee and speaking up combine into one assurance system, and where each tends to fail.
2. 2Assess the evidence behind board reports by building an assurance map, testing audit independence and follow up, and reviewing counter fraud arrangements against recognised principles.
3. 3Lead sharper board challenge by applying the lessons of real governance failures and the four closing questions to your own organisation's assurance.

What you'll develop

Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:

1. 1Explain the difference between reassurance and assurance, and define control and oversight precisely.
2. 2Distinguish between the design and the operation of a control, and classify controls as preventive or detective, manual or automated.
3. 3Describe the structure of the Global Internal Audit Standards and the role they give the board or audit committee in governing internal audit.
4. 4Plan and build an assurance map in six steps, rating each source of assurance by its strength, recency and independence.
5. 5Explain the fraud triangle of pressure, opportunity and rationalisation, and use it to reduce the conditions in which fraud occurs.
6. 6Apply the four lenses of evidence, independence, the committee and map, and fraud and voice to analyse a governance failure fairly, without implying individual wrongdoing.