An organization's new president meets the CAE for the first time, and asks him or her to briefly describe the department's overall responsibility. The CAE states that internal audit's overall responsibility is to:
a. Act as an independent appraisal function to review operations as a service to management by measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of controls.
b. Review the means of safeguarding assets and, as appropriate, verify the existence of such assets.
c. Ensure compliance with policies, plans, procedures, laws, and regulations that could have a significant impact on operations and reports.
d. Review the reliability and integrity of financial and operating information and the means used to identify, measure, classify, and report such information.