Public Posting of Audits, Internal Auditing Department

Screenshots from the website for the Internal Auditing Department, showing how an archive of past audits are available for public access. An example audit downloaded from this archive is also included

Internal Audit: Does it Enhance Governance in the Australian Public University Sector?

This study seeks to confirm if internal audit, a corporate control process, is functioning effectively in Australian public universities. The study draws on agency theory, published literature and best-practice guidelines to develop an internal audit evaluation framework. A survey instrument is thereafter developed from the framework and used as a basis to examine if internal audit is structured to enhance governance in the Australian public university sector. The results show that a majority of university internal audit functions are operating under flexible structural and functional arrangements to achieve internal audit’s theoretical role of enhancing governance. A minority of functions did not comply with best-practice guidelines for achieving internal auditing’s theoretical role. The flexible arrangements further do not guarantee internal audit functions currently complying with best-practice guidelines will continue to do so. Contributing factors to non-compliance and flexible operating arrangements include the non-availability of mandatory requirements for compliance by the profession or government legislation. The study provides avenues for further research to confirm the findings with other stakeholders