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Another year starting with a PSIAS EQA. Unlike last year's reviews, I really felt that I could make a difference here and that there were some significant developments that the team could make to improve what they offer their council. It was also a revisit of a team that I reviewed nearly five years ago and it was great to see how they had improved since then. The rest of the month was spent planning for training later on (more ethics), delivering a little internal control training and working on the risk appetite and guidance project.
The month started fast and continued that way, I delivered ethics training 'in' Malta, Athens, Rome and Cyprus simultaneously (I may loathe online training but there are a few advantages), followed by internal control training 'in' Brussels and Luxembourg (and maybe elsewhere) and finishing with written communication for auditors - a two-day course nerding out on the niceties of English grammer (as all my grammer came from O level Latin, this can be a bit of a stretch for me) and then spending time coaching non-English speakers to write audit reports. As always, I am full of admiration for anyone who can string a sentence together in another language let alone write a detailed audit report and these sessions were all about how to get an impact with a report rather than any major re-writing. They do like their passives .... I also spent the month recording and editing a video to provide blended ethics training. I badly underestimated how time-consuming it would be, but I was pleased that I had remembered the editing I did last year and I didn't have to start from scratch. And, in between all of this, I put the final touches to the risk appetite statement and got the guidance well underway.
Another month of ethics training: ten half-day sessions in under three weeks. They were supposed to have watched the video beforehand so that we could concentrate on discussions, but this worked for only two groups. Hmm. Maybe an approach to rethink. In between ethical stuff, I did two versions of the introduction to internal audit in one week, meaning that I got very confused about who I had said what to and what was covered in each course. Thankfully my co-trainers kept me on track. I also talked to an audit committee in Scotland and delivered another internal control session and we have almost put the risk appetite guidance project to bed. I ended the month with a sore arm, having joined team Astra-Zenica. Is this the beginning of the end?
At the start of the month I began a new project, looking at the audit committee arrangements for a city council. This seemed simple initially, but the city council isn't like any other. The ethical theme continued, with training for another agency. And I have somehow found my arm being twisted into delivering internal control training bilingually! I won't have to speak French but my co-trainer will and I will have to respond to questions and comments in French. Help!
May was a mixed month: the ethical theme was represented by a whole day event where four trainers co-facilitated sessions for an entire agency. All our pre-discussions went wrong so we went into this a little blind, but it worked in the end and the client was happy. I carried out internal control training for various clients and completely rethought the internal control course that we are going to deliver bilingually (keep the methodology short and give them video case studies to consider the key issues) - will the client like it? Apparently so. The risk appetite guidance popped up again for some final revisions (spoiler alert - they weren't quite final) and I did two communication courses back-to-back. Thankfully they were different enough for me not to get too muddled. I ended the month with the first interviews for the audit committee review (their differences and challenges are already becoming obvious) and internal control training on the bank holiday Monday as it isn't a bank holiday in Europe - why did I agree to that?
The month began with a scary bang and the bilingual internal control training. I survived the first morning but struggled more on the second day as the conversation covered some broader topics. I did, however, learn some useful new risk vocabulary. At the end of the week we did an even scarier atelier to provide delegates with support to their specific questions. Very kindly, they mostly stuck to English so I survived but it was very hard work. The city council interviews continued, I provided audit committee training and I also supported a European DG to develop a more tailored impact scale for their risks: lots of interviews with key players from many disciplines which I then did my best to stick together. I hope it was what they wanted. I had more internal control and risk management training, more ethics training and more audit committee training, including an evening session on financial scrutiny for one council which we all greaty enjoyed. At the end of the month I carried out a validation of an internal audit self-assessment against the PSIAS for a council only a short hop away from me, but still all done remotely of course. And I managed to squeeze in my second jab: I'm not sure how I feel about it all .....
July was ethics-free, but otherwise I covered most of the usual areas and did my first expenditure lifecycle course for a long time. Towards the end of the month, I delivered training on the principles of ISO31000 - easy enough until you factor in 30+ delegates at each course and simultaneous interpretation into Serbo-Croatian, Albanian and Russian. They want the next courses to be more interactive, but I am still wondering how to achieve that with these extra complications. Any suggestions? I completed the city council review (report yet to write) by looking at agendas and minutes for the last two years and watching an online meeting. The risk appetite statement and guidance came back briefly but is now complete (we hope) and we are moving on to developing key risk indicators. This is a new area for me and I'm looking forward to learning. And, to everyone's huge delight, the fabulous Voces8 managed to put on the singing course at Milton Abbey again this year: fewer people, almost no international contingent and some lateral flow testing were the changes but in the end we sang, loudly, shoulder-to-shoulder and with great joy, and performed some of the best 19th and 20th pieces of church music going. Roll on next year.
I had a peaceful month, with a few discussions about risk appetite, but otherwise spent in the garden cursing the building that is going on in the field behind my house, dress making, visiting the coast and making plans for a marginally less constrained autumn.
My first plan for a more open autumn was to audition for and join the local choir, which I successfully managed. What will happen when I start travelling more I don't know, but I have a year of singing to look forward to. My second plan was to arrange a little trip away: I spent the last week of the month comparing and contrasting walled Roman towns, spending three nights in York and three in Chester, my first holiday for two years. They were both delightful, but Chester had the edge I think. In between these two events, I delivered a lot of training: ethics, audit committees, risk management and audit communication. I also did my first face-to-face event, training an audit committee in Birmingham. I was giddy with excitement and then surprised at how normal it quickly felt. I also continued to work on risk appetite documents - all the projects are finally nearing an end, thankfully.
Another month of training: ethics, fraud, internal controls and audit committees. I facilitated a risk workshop, throught about risk appetites and KRIs to monitor them, developed PIs to monitor internal controls and finished the month discussing the ins and outs of audit report writing with European Commission colleagues in three coaching sessions. As a child of the 70s, taught no grammer for fear that it would stifle my creativity, these sessions are a challenge and I always come away having learnt something new, but I'm told that they are also very helpful.
The theme of the last few months continued in November, with a mix of ethics training and risk activities. I also spent a day talking to new internal auditors, a half day talking about fraud and delivered a number of internal control courses. On the singing front I foolishly stood up when the Choral Society asked for a volunteer to be treasurer and I sang Evensong for the first time in ages, which was a great delight. Even better is that this will be a regular event. And all the Christmas carol service preparations are beginning to get going - it's wonderful to be back in the swing of this.
Things did not get quieter in December. I provided risk training to people who manage chemical, biological and nuclear facilities (this did feel a bit like teaching my grandmother to suck eggs but they were happy), I developed the first courses, recorded the first videos and delivered the first two sessions for some internal audit training for inspectors, I trained an audit committee and I thought further about risk appetites. I also started planning work for next year and tried to wrap up the discussions about PIs for internal controls (still a way to go) and KRIs for a risk appetite (we are getting there). In between all of that, I sang in a choir concert, did some carol singing outside Waitrose (a better class of audience?) and took part in two nine lessons and carols services on consequtive evenings.
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