Internal audits are an important component of your overall self-assurance. Ensuring that your internal auditing is effective will help your RTO achieve quality outcomes for students and industry rather than just ticking a box for regulatory and contractual requirements. Here is some advice in what you need to run your internal audit programme successfully.

Table of Contents

Create a risk-based audit programme

Your audit programme should be informed by the risks assessed in your management systems. Be careful not to try to audit everything at the same frequency else you will be over auditing some risks and others not enough. You should apply risk ratings to areas of concern that determines their priority in the audit schedule. You will waste your resources if you do not plan your audits appropriately and you will fail to extract meaningful data from your audit activities.

Define your audit objectives

You need to be clear on why you are conducting your audits and what the purpose is. Your RTO should carefully consider why your auditors are actually conducting their reviews; what is the value of them and what outcomes do you want from them? Some considerations when determining your objectives could include checking if organisational controls are being adhered to and are in alignment and fit for purpose or determining if staff have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. You could also determine areas for improvement and identify what levels of consistency currently exist across RTO processes and departments.

Determine your audit scope

Your audit scope should identify the parameters of the proposed audit such as size of sampling; breadth of coverage; what teams; what processes and locations are included. Make sure you are specific with your scope and you explicitly reference processes to be reviewed. If you clearly define the scope of the audit for your auditors and auditees it will be well understood by all parties.

Clearly define the audit criteria

Your audit criteria is what the audit is checking against. Generally for RTOs this is likely to be the SNR’s from the SRTO’s 2015 or clauses from funding agreements or other contracts. Similar to the scope the audit criteria helps keep the auditors on track and is used to determine whether evidence complies or does not comply against the audit criteria stated. Auditors need to be familiar with the requirements of the audit criteria. Audit findings must be void of auditors opinions and referenced back to the criteria for validity.

Auditor credentials

The auditors you choose to conduct your internal audits should be dual qualified / experienced with both appropriate qualifications in auditing and knowledge of the VET sector. Experienced auditors understand how to conduct effective opening and closing meetings and how to gather and review evidence. They also provide feedback and audit reports that are brief, concise and factual. Anything less will be a waste of RTO resources.