please find attached paper.

Internal Audit in Practice

Description: A series of case studies produced in collaboration with the National Audit Office, featuring public and private sector organizations

Six subjects covered:

1. Applying internal audit resources 2. Scope of internal audit 3. Auditing projects 4. The relationship with the audit committee 5. Risk-based internal audit 6. Evaluating internal audit

Requirements:

1. Provide a brief overview of the cases and the companies. This should not be more than 2 pages.

2. Under each subject, summarize all best practices of all the cited companies

3. Analyze, discuss and criticize each element of the best practices mentioned above.

4. Choose a company, you work in or you know, and give a brief overview.

5. Pick the most suitable best practices, from the list above, to your company and explain why?

6. Develop a plan for implementation of these best practices. The plan should include:

a. The sequence; from the most important to the least important best practice.

b. The resources needed.

c. The organizational management and integration; what problems you may face (such as resistance to change) and how would you handle them?

Internal Audit in Practice A series of case studies produced in collaboration with the National Audit Office, featuring public and private sector organisations Foreword The drive for greater efficiency in public spending and the more localised delivery of services is changing the focus of government. As a result, the risks are changing and the governance, risk management, internal controls and assurance processes need to adapt. Internal audit's role in this is essential both in providing assurance on the effectiveness of controls over key systems and in advising executive management and those responsible for governance on the management of risk. These are not easy tasks when resources are stretched and increasing demands are made of internal audit by departmental boards enhanced by highly experienced nonexecutive board members with commercial backgrounds. But the profession can reach new levels of influence and recognition as it responds to the challenges it faces. This series of case studies is designed to support that response. Arranged under six themes common to all internal audit teams, they draw on interviews with private and public sector heads of internal audit, who explain their approaches to the challenges of, for example, building relationships with audit committees, evaluating the impact of internal audit and undertaking a risk based approach to internal audit. The examples are not necessarily meant to represent best practice but are intended to showcase a range of responses to the demands placed upon internal auditors. We hope they will be a valuable tool to promote new ideas and support the development of your internal audit function. 2 Ian Peters Andrew Baigent Chief Executive Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors Director-General Financial Audit National Audit Office Contents Applying internal audit resources 4 Scope of internal audit 7 Auditing projects 13 The relationship with the audit committee 19 Risk-based internal audit 23 Evaluating internal audit 27 3 Applying internal audit resources Internal audit needs to make sure that the resources it has are sufficient to meet the expectations of the audit committee. This requires careful planning and a realistic view of the budget and skills that the audit function has. Telecoms provider BT's director of internal audit and enterprise risk management James Grigor sets out how he ensures the function's activities are properly resourced 4 British Telecom (BT) is the UK's largest communications service company. It has an annual revenue of 20bn and employs over 90,000 people, with customers in more than 170 countries. Over 60% of Fortune 500 companies including Google, Microsoft and Pepsi use BT's networked IT services. James Grigor joined BT as director of internal audit in 2007. He has a team of 67 internal auditors who are all based in the UK. They carry out operational audits and review work primarily in the UK, Europe, and North America, while Big Four accountancy firm Ernst & Young performs much of the internal audit work for the group's operations in Latin America, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific through three regionally based co-sourcing agreements. These reviews are overseen by BT internal audit and follow the same methodology that the function employs in all its reviews. Over the past five years the number of BT internal auditors has reduced slightly, though the use of co-sourcing has risen. Two years ago BT's internal audit department changed its operating structure. Previously, the internal audit function had been aligned \"vertically\" with each of BT's six lines of business (Openreach, Retail, Global Services, Wholesale, BT Innovate and Design, and BT Operate). This meant that the function was effectively split into six different sections so that there was a dedicated - and separate - internal audit team for each of these business areas, plus a \"It would be impossible to allocate internal audit resources to every project in BT\" - James Grigor, BT finance team and a general internal audit team that carried out reviews across the group. A potential problem with such an approach was that internal audit's expertise could become \"siloed\