Financial Statements For Audit Committees

Course details

The session on Financial Statements for Audit Committees has been developed for both existing and new members of all public sector audit committees.

Audit committees and the internal audit function, are present today in all areas of the public sector. Generally the purpose of an audit committee is to review an organisation’s corporate governance, internal control environment, risk management and financial statements and provide support to and monitor the work of the internal auditors. This workshop focuses on the role that the audit committee plays in providing assurances to the Board on the annual financial statements and notes therein.

When reviewing the financial statements of a body, among other things, the committee must assess the suitability of accounting policies and treatments, note any changes in policies, review strategic planning issues e.g. provisions, investigate any adjustments and items that are material in nature. In order to do this, a certain level of financial acumen and confidence is required, especially where difficult questions may need to be posed. For many audit committees, there is often over reliance on inpidual committee members, chief financial officers and/or chief executives.

In this half day workshop, participants will be provided with the basic financial tools to aid them in scrutinising and evaluating financial statements for public bodies. The focus will be to identify and simplify critical financial data and demonstrate its usefulness to the committee in providing assurances to the Board.