Opening and closing meetings - internal audit
Hello,
Hope you will help me with below. Just a general question.
During the internal audits, do we need to organise the opening and closing meetings and if so do the the senior manager need to attend? Also, do we need to have any evidence for those meetings, for example copy of meeting minutes with the list of all people present and have their signature?
We was thinking to carry on the internal meetings based on the BRC modules, for example, one day we are doing the audit for clause 1 - Senior Management Commitment, next day for clause 2 Hazard and Risk Assessement, etc....
Many thanks,
Anna
Hello,
Hope you will help me with below. Just a general question.
During the internal audits, do we need to organise the opening and closing meetings and if so do the the senior manager need to attend? Also, do we need to have any evidence for those meetings, for example copy of meeting minutes with the list of all people present and have their signature?
We was thinking to carry on the internal meetings based on the BRC modules, for example, one day we are doing the audit for clause 1 - Senior Management Commitment, next day for clause 2 Hazard and Risk Assessement, etc....
Many thanks,
Anna
IMHO: i dont think an opening and closing meeting is necessary. However, it is a good idea if you can set up a closing meeting after your internal audit is conducted to share the results and observations/GAPs noticed during your internal audit.
Documenting a closing/management meeting (post Internal Audit) is a good idea as you can summarize the findings, responsible departments for corrective actions and a proposed date of corrective action implementation.
Hi Anna,
You probably don't need a formal opening/closing meeting for your internal audits for the Agents & Brokers standard, but you will need a mechanism to demonstrate that actions have been communicated to relevant persons, to verify that these have been closed off and that corrective actions are effective.
Breaking the audit schedule down into sections of the standard can be a sensible approach, although for some you may find that the section is quite large to cover in one go so you may choose to split it into parts and audit e.g. half of the procedures in one go and the other half separately.
Some areas you may also need to audit more than once, as you'll need to do a risk assessment to define the audit frequencies (clause 3.5.1).
If you involve senior management directly in every audit then they may start to find it something of a burden, depending on how your schedule looks and how much time the senior team have available, but again this shouldn't be necessary unless the audit directly involves them.
You can readily demonstrate suitable commitment in this area by ensuring that internal audit performance is included on the agenda for the management review meeting(s) required under clause 1.1.3, and also any regular departmental and operational meetings.
Concerning the Senior Management portion: I would leave them out if the meetings. Keep them involved via email and when your sending out the Final Reports and paperwork.
When you go to audit a department, clauses etc. it’s already nerve racking enough for the person being audied. It will make it Much worse when they see Senior Management there!
Senior Management should provide all your resources you need: training, staff to perform the audits. It would probably be a good idea to post tot the plant your about to do the audits, and ensure Senior Management is behind you on that too.
Good luck to you. This is a big process, but with support you will be fine.
Hello,
We are not doing opening meeting when conducting Internal Audit. We also don't tell them (head and staff) that we will conduct IA, so that what you can see is the actual scenario on their process. After conducting IA, we conduct management meeting to discuss our findings, good and bad (NC).
regards,
redfox