Government Internal Audit Agency: Standards

(asked on 29th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what remedial steps were taken by his Department in response to the Government Internal Audit Agency rating downgrade in 2017-18.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 7th October 2020

In the 2017-18 Annual Report and Accounts, the Group Chief Internal Auditor (GCIA) from the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) provided an overall ‘moderate’ opinion on the framework of governance, risk management, and control within the Department for 2017-18. This was an increase from the ‘limited’ level of assurance received by the Department for 2016-17. The Report is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-annual-report-and-accounts-2017-to-2018.

The strengthened assurance rating recognised the good progress made and initiatives taken across the Department to further develop the governance, risk management, and control environment. This included continuing the transformation to a single Department and the introduction of new risk management and contract management frameworks. New control measures were introduced, supported by a new internal controls team to strengthen the Department’s approach to assurance and to address control weaknesses identified by the GIAA, such as ensuring internal audit actions are implemented promptly.

Since 2017-18 the Department has continued to make improvements within its internal control environment, more detail on which is set out in subsequent Annual Reports and Accounts.

As noted by the GIIA, this has been achieved against the backdrop of a challenging scale of policy and programme work that the Department has been able to deliver concurrently.

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