| Written by Cathy Criswell,
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Do auditees actually do what they agree to do? This is a question often asked by Internal Auditors. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Office of the City Auditor has both a legal and professional obligation to follow-up on actions taken by management in response to audit recommendations. This is a difficult task since the Internal Auditing Department has developed over 250 audit findings since its creation in 1988. We found it practical to schedule only 2 to 4 follow-up reviews per year to leave sufficient time for completing planned audit projects. We need a way to follow-up on the audit findings not addressed in follow-up reviews.
CREATION OF DATA BASE
This issue was resolved by creating an audit finding data base. The data base includes a brief summary of audit findings, recommendations, and responses. Each finding is given a status code to indicate whether it is completed, declined, or pending. The status code is determined from auditee responses to the audit reports. An expected completion date is entered for each pending finding.
Data base information can be sorted by audit report, department, status code, or completion date. The sort feature enhances our ability to calculate statistics and to isolate findings with expired completion dates. The data base includes a report creation feature so the audit findings can be formatted and printed out in the form we want. The report feature allows us to rearrange or delete fields from the stored information for report purposes. This feature also allows us to add other information that will appear only on the report. We used the report feature to create a questionnaire from to inquire about the current status of pending corrective action.
SURVEY PROCESS
Our first survey was done in March 1992. Questionnaire forms were sent to department heads on all pending corrective action from audit reports issued between 7/1/88 and 12/31/91. The questionnaire forms included the audit finding summary and an area for indicating the current status. Auditees completed the forms by circling either yes or no to indicate if corrective action had been completed. The form included lines for providing additional explanation and requested updated completion dates for corrective action still not completed.
REPORT
A report of the results of the survey was issued in July 1992. The information reported was taken directly from the responses provided by the auditees. Of the 141 audit findings included in the survey, auditees indicated 105 (75%) had been completed. These statistics were included in the report, along with partially complete, pending, not be implemented due to changed circumstances, and no reply statistics. The responses were summarized and reported by department in the same categories as the statistics. This format allowed us to report both management accomplishments and unresolved issues.
We used this opportunity to report results from all audits conducted since the department was created. The overall recommendation acceptance rate was 93 percent. The remaining seven percent included recommendations auditees declined (3%) or that will not be implemented due to changed circumstances (4%). Seventy-seven percent of the recommendations we had made had been completed; 16 percent were either partially complete or pending.
Several charts were included in the report to provide quick information to readers who do not have enough time to read the entire report. There was a bar chart pictorially presenting overall statistics. On this chart each department had a separate bar placed in order of largest number of findings to least number. The bars included hatchings to illustrate completion rates. Pie charts for each department were used to present results from the inquiry forms. Charts were used to report numbers and percentages for both overall results and inquiry form results.
CONCLUSION
The audit finding data base provides an efficient way to discharge our responsibility to report the actions taken by auditees on audit recommendations. It allows follow up of all findings to be conducted much quicker than individual follow-up reviews could be conducted. It helps us to target for follow-up reviews those audits with the most corrective action completed. This process gives us an opportunity to report positive information about auditees and Internal Auditing results. The process was a little bumpy because this was the first time it has been done but we have great expectations for the future.
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