Internal auditors spend their careers reviewing the work of others. Yet an important question often gets overlooked: who scrutinizes the auditors themselves?
Audit quality cannot be taken for granted. Without oversight, even well-intentioned teams risk falling short of professional standards.
Current Practices and Their Limitations
One common approach is the External Quality Assessment. These are valuable, but they typically occur only once every five years.
Given how quickly organizations, risks, and regulations evolve, this interval is far too long. Significant changes can occur between reviews.
Another practice is ongoing supervision and internal reviews conducted by audit management. While helpful, these checks are not fully independent, as they are carried out by those embedded in the function itself.
Both approaches provide some assurance, but not enough.
A Dedicated Quality Assurance Team
A more effective solution is to establish a dedicated Quality Assurance (QA) team within the internal audit function. This team conducts independent evaluations to ensure ongoing conformance with professional standards.
In large, regulated organizations, Professional Practices Groups with integrated QA processes are already common. But even outside regulated financial industries, the benefits are clear.
In my own practice, I’ve begun building a QA team of three to strengthen audit quality and reduce audit risks. The independence of this group ensures that quality isn’t a one-off check but a continuous commitment.
The Future of Internal Audit Oversight
For smaller teams in non-regulated industries, establishing a QA function may feel like a heavy cost.
But as the Global Internal Audit Standards evolve and new technologies such as generative AI become part of the profession, independent oversight will only grow in importance.
Implementing QA is not just about compliance. It is about building credibility, ensuring responsible use of technology, and safeguarding audit effectiveness.
The profession must now consider: will dedicated QA teams become the norm across all internal audit functions? If quality is truly non-negotiable, the answer points toward yes.