Top reasons to press ahead with EQAs

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, some CAEs are keen to press ahead with their EQAs and the Institute is well placed to support this. 

Reasons for proceeding include: 

• Evidencing that the organisation can continue to meet regulator and governance requirements
• Even in these difficult times, a desire to not be in technical breach of the IPPF by passing the 5-year deadline
• Utilising staff downtime caused by delays to the audit programme. 

For outsourced providers of internal audit, client organisations may well need to place reliance on an EQA for their respective governance or regulator activities. Therefore, delays may not be well-received by clients. 

 Remote assessing well received 

Whatever the circumstances, the Institute is well placed to undertake EQAs during the COVID-19 crisis and, indeed, a number of reviews have remotely taken place during the current lockdown. Our EQA reviewers are able to work effectively using our established, secure technology for video conferencing and file sharing. In many ways, this is a similar experience to the reviewers visiting client sites in that neither the quality of the review nor the assurance provided is compromised.  

Heads of Audit have responded positively to the continuation of the reviews with the CAE from a recent EQA feeding back: “It was only the week before the review that, due to COVID-19, we asked the lead reviewer if their plans to meet people in person could be undertaken remotely. The lead reviewer was very flexible and dealt with this challenge really well and our stakeholders commented on how well they engaged with them. 

The challenge when meeting with people remotely is the ability to establish a rapport. The lead reviewer easily overcame this as they had an amazing ability to present a professional front whilst making people feel at ease with the situation. 

The benefit of working remotely was that rather than having to deal with multiple room changes and the initial greeting small talk, time was saved and the meetings and therefore results were much more focussed.”

 EQA readiness health checks 

For some CAEs, the level of disruption in their organisation means this is not a good time to proceed. For these CAEs who want to ensure they are well placed to proceed with a review once some of the current restrictions lift, the Institute is offering an enhanced service called an ‘EQA readiness health check’ during the period of the lockdown. These reviews are undertaken remotely and are very reasonably priced. 

Through discussions with the CAE and high-level review of internal audit core documents, an experienced member of our review panel will provide feedback on the readiness of the function for an EQA and recommend further actions which would enhance the outcome of their EQA assessment. This service aids in preparing for an EQA and can be used as a way of demonstrating to stakeholders that progress towards a positive EQA outcome once lockdown lifts has already been made.

 Get in touch

If you are interested in discussing either a remote EQA or a readiness health check, please fill in the form below.

For general enquiries please contact Kevin Grimwood on 0207 819 1945 or email at eqa@iia.org.uk