Suggested reading and
listening
Comments
Contact Tilia
Solutions
The year has started quietly and I managed to get a lot of preparation done, which is always a good position to be in! My first training event was a trip Louth to provide training for members and officers on risk management. This was a revisit to the authority and it was great to see how their thinking is evolving. I also co-trained on the first of a new series of audit committee courses, looking at how the audit committee can be more dynamic. The first event went well and will, we hope, go even better with a few tweaks. I ended the month with my first trip to Brussesl, doing two half-day sessions back-to-back. Always enjoyable but exhausting too as I have to remember what I've said to which group.
In between my trips away, I have managed to do some work nearer to home, working with a mental health and community trust to develop their risk management.
A manic first week and then February goes very quiet. I've been to Brussels (risk training), Chester (the second outing for the new audit committee course delivered in January) and London (risk training again, but for a higher education college - so a whole new take on the risks faced, or is it?)
This month has been spent in Brussels. I delivered a new version of internal audit training, supposedly for non-auditors but, as ever, to a very mixed audience. It's great to get the viewpoints of those who have audited for years contrasted with those who have only ever been audited. My co-trainer was everything that you could want: interactive, supportive, able to spot when I needed help and, between us, we also re-edited the course. A busy few days! I returned to Brussels for more internal control training - a familiar and well-structured course which is always a pleasure to deliver.
I started April with a trip to Italy. Sadly it was only marginally warmer up in the mountains there than in Dorset but it was good to catch up with old friends and deliver training to a group that was interested and engaged. I also, to my great delight, finished writing the risk appetite briefing paper for CIPFA that we have been working on for a year. Watch out for that on the CIPFA website.
My major activities this month, however, have been village related, with the AGM for the Village Hall, for which I am treasurer, and preparation for our biennial May Fayre/glorified dog show. Everything is nearly ready - now all we need to do is pray for sunshine ....
Two enjoyable days training in Brussels, delivering the revised management supervision course and the engaging risk management course. The delegates joined in and a good time seemed to be had by all.
I attended day one of the CIPFA audit conference. There were some thought-provoking speakers and lots of new ideas. It was also good to network with old friends over lunch.
The May Fayre was also a huge success (over £2,000 raised for local groups which is a record) and the sun shone just enough for the ice creams to sell but no-one got too hot. The accounts are nearly done - shame about the bar stock reconciliation but my audit skills helped me reconstruct that.
I spent June going back and forth over and under the English Channel, with a trip over the Irish Sea as a diversion. Two days delivering the introduction to internal audit course with an engaged and enthusiastic co-trainer was a pleaure and I enjoyed a day on internal controls and another on risk management too. I added to my internal audit training portfolio by stepping in for a trainer in London with a broken arm - we were all distracted by the band playing tunes from the shows on the Embankment, a benefit that will be lost with the CIPFA office move.
I had a productive day in Dublin, agreeing a review of internal control and anti-fraud measures and providing some basic training on both. It was interesting to observe the reactions of people to my comments that most of us, given sufficient incentive, would commit fraud, from extreme horror (or should that be naivity) to total agreement (should we be calling the police now?).
My travels at the end of the month took me to Italy to train in risk and internal control and to be thrilled by some spectacular thunderstroms and drenched in the accompanying rain. I do enjoy these weather extremes. My week in Italy was interrupted by a flying trip to Brussels to talk about fraud. There are now lots of people watching out for news reports of a large heist in rural Dorset ....
My last trip of the month was to Walsall for a two hour training session with new audit committee members. This was much more exciting than it sounds as a hold up on the M5 used up all my spare travel time and I arrived with one minute to spare (I know I believe in just in time, but that was too close for comfort). We had just about recovered and started the introductions when the fire alarm went off and I ended up training in a car park for a while (a first). Despite these hiccups, we made it through the material and a good time seemed to have been had by all.
The first week of this month was spent analysing the outcome of the fraud and internal control questionnaire. We had a gratifyingly high response rate and some very useful results, although some of them might be uncomfortable for the senior management team. I was back in Dublin the following week to feedback and agree what next. While some of the messages may not have been what they had hoped for, we agreed further action and another trip to Dublin in the Autumn to talk to all staff.
I went straight from Dublin to York (not a journey I would recommend when the flight to Leeds/Bradford has been cancelled) and had two days training with a CIPFA colleague for audit committee members. It never ceases to amaze me how the same course material can result in such a different course as the delegates take control.
I spent an interesting afternoon discussing assurance in relation to a risk register. It became very apparent to all of us that if the risk isn't well described and the controls aren't well identified then it is impossible to come up with any sensible assurance. As a result, we spent a lot of our time thinking about the risk, but everyone present found this a useful way of spending an hour and the importance of describing risks well was appreciated in the most effective way possible.
The last two days of July were spent delivering the Fundamentals of Risk Management course for the IRM, during which time I was evaluated as a trainer and given my training accreditation, only the third person to achieve this since the scheme was introduced. It is always good to have someone observe you training every so often and I was pleased to know that I have no verbal ticks and tell a good story. I was also given some new ideas for getting feedback, so watch out for them.
August was, as usual, quiet work-wise, with a trip to Lincoln to work with an audit committee on its self assessment against the new CIPFA guidance being my only outing. However, as last year, I spent a lot of time singing, with two concerts and three services over one weekend. I also got more decorating done and ended the month with a garden party for my birthday, so lots of cake baking going on. (Delia's scone receipe is the best, if you are wondering.)
The first week of September was spent on holiday (my first for years) in Lisbon, being warm and seeing the sights. We even found some decent vegetarian food! And then back to chilly Dorset and work. I spent an interesting day with a London Borough's audit committee, training them during the day and then sitting in on their meeting in the evening and giving some feedback. It was frustrating that only the audit committee chair could come to the training part of the day, with other interested members also attending. And it was even more frustrating to sit in the meeting and be unable to ask questions ... I also had a day trip to Lincolnshire (yes, all the way from Dorset) to deliver a short "How to question your accounts" session before the audit committee then went on to do just that. Feedback from the chair, who I bumped into a few months later, was very positive.
October had a celtic theme with trips to Ireland and Wales, as well as three interesting days talking internal audit in Brussels, where it is all change for the way that is managed. I enjoyed returning to Dublin to finalise the work that we had done on fraud risks by talking to about half of the agency staff. We were stumped by a question around conflict of interests and whether that would always be a fraud. I later discovered that the questioner was on their legal team and was being provocative. Apparently I gave the correct answer. I revisited the haunts of my teenage years while delivering risk appetite training in Cardiff. This is always a challenging course as people's opinions are so varied, but I picked up some interesting ideas for how to make it work in practice. And finally I stayed in a spa hotel in Llandrindod Wells to talk to Welsh PCC audit committees. Another challenging session as we are all finding out how it works.
What a month! I really should look at a map and train/plane times before I say yes to things. I started out in Brussels, talking to an agency about risks and facilitating a risk workshop, then back to London to deliver internal audit training, back to Brussels for workshops two and three and from there to Lincoln for a day at the PCC and a day with a mixture of councils talking about audit committees. I had armed myself with treats for the Brussels people in the shape of chocolate brussel sprouts and clementines to help get the discussion going. By the end of the week, I was throwing them at people for asking tricky questions. I think they were appreciated. In week two I went to Essex to train at the very first place I audited as a new trainee. It was all completely unfamiliar until I walked into the council chamber, when it all came rushing back - balancing hand-written ledgers (fantastic for training) on those narrow desks. Fortunately no-one remembered me. From there I went back to Brussels to feed back on the risk workshops. To my astonishment, we got through 18 risks in one and a half hours. It shows what can be done with a sharp eye on the clock and determination. Back to Brussels again in week three for risk and internal audit training and finally in week four the traveller's nightmare - getting from Ljubljana (training in internal controls for two days) to Lincoln for a morning meeting. All went well until I got to Heathrow to find that my car battery was flat. It's a good thing I don't need a lot of sleep. It was interesting to see Ljubljana again, last seen around the time I last went to the Essex authority, but with even fewer memories, and I was thrilled to find that most restaurants offered a vegetarian menu (with fish??) and a vegan menu. The trip to Lincoln marked a positive end to the work with the PCC and I was very pleased to be home!
Thank goodness for Christmas and a forced break as the start of December looked like continuing November's manic theme. I had two days in London training for the IRM and staying at a lovely hotel with very decadent pool near St Paul's (yet another last minute bargin), although they did take 30 minutes to produce my porridge on the first morning. From there to an eccentric hotel in Liverpool (the two-bath bathroom with TV will linger in my memory) and audit committee training for a Merseyside authority. I ended the week helping with audit committee training in London. In the following week I had my final visit to Robert Street, CIPFA's HQ for the last 30 years for a meeting. I shall miss the magnificent hall and staircase, but it really was an inconvenient building for offices. I finished my year with a trip to Scotland to spend an afternoon with an audit committee, talking about how to improve their working.
2012 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024