Toward Better Audit Quality: Role of Peer Learning
We discussed with Mr. Murat Sahal from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey the usefulness and impact of the learning event “Quality Assurance, Continuous Improvement and Management of the Internal Audit Function” which Mr. Sahal attended in February this year.
“My motivation to join this workshop was to build upon my diverse audit experience in the workshop topic as we are re-engineering our audit processes and I have been recently, together with the team of auditors, managing and supervising the updated IT audit universe. Currently, we are in close cooperation with the Chief Audit Executive (CAE), researching the areas of improvement and best practices regarding the internal audit function and opportunities for adapting the internal audit function to add more value to the future organization of the Bank. We are also evaluating our internal audit charter, the Quality Assurance and Improvement Program (QAIP), and the maturity of the audit function within the Bank. In this regard, I found the workshop particularly timely.
During the workshop the most meaningful activity for me was the exercise on establishing and implementing a QAIP. It was useful because it illustrated well lessons learned in terms of what needs to be done in situations when an organization is constructing the QAIP from scratch as well as in case the organization is evaluating the status of the already existent QAIP and audit charters.
The comparative table depicting the assessments of the different aspects of the QAIP and audit charters of the participating institutions was also very useful for a quick peer review and comparison among different internal audit units across countries. We assess our internal audit unit annually and the information gathered at the workshop will enable us to perform this year’s assessment with more insight and awareness.
This occasion was also a helpful reminder that underlined the rising importance of the QAIP in our internal audit unit at the Bank, and the responsibility of the CAE in maintaining effective and value-adding internal audit function, which is a challenging, hard-to-achieve and often a neglected responsibility.
Lastly, I would like to mention that I was impressed by the caliber and enthusiasm of both workshop experts and participants to contribute to the event’s success as well as by the professionalism of the CEF staff throughout the event.”