Main benefits
The purpose of the Audit Committee Effectiveness Survey is to identify actions which can be taken to improve the effectiveness of an audit committee’s oversight in relation to risk management, internal controls and compliance, financial reporting and internal and external audit.
Issues of the audit committee’s structure, composition, meetings and reporting are also addressed. Committee members are taken through a comprehensive range of issues relevant to their oversight in a structured way.
The benefits of using the Audit Committee Effectiveness Survey include:
- many issues that may not otherwise be included as part of an audit committee review, are considered
- committee members consider the issues in a consistent way by responding to the same survey statements in the same order and using the same response scale
- committee member views are equally weighted and such views are not biased or impacted by the view or emotions of other members or consultants
- committee members are able to balance their consideration of each issue against the other issues in a well designed survey that takes less than 30 minutes
- benchmarking the committee’s responses against other audit committees enables the prioritisation of issues
- the survey is independently carried out by Insync Surveys, which offers anonymity to respondents and encourages candid responses
This survey is a very useful, cost effective and unobtrusive way to quickly highlight possible issues of concern and issues that may need further attention. The survey does not replace the need to take appropriate action in relation to issues highlighted, nor does it override the need to take other steps to review and improve committee effectiveness.
