What is wrong with Internal Audit in 2026?
Let us start with the name. Most will either cringe or descend into fear just on hearing the term audit. And with some justification. I recall working for US multinationals when the announcement of an IA visit was an 80/20 career ending call. And of course, audit is just the description of our work method. It is not the output of the work.
What we deliver is the assurance that only we can give. Nobody cares how we get there if we present that clean bill of health that our clients can then pass on.
So, we need a new image. I like the modern sound of Internal Assurance.
What do you think?
I am often reminded that the bloke (I assume it was a bloke) who invented the wheel never made a penny out of it. And that is because he forgot to invent pennies first.
So in the spirit of reinventing the wheel, and avoiding the penny trap of repeating the errors of history into which the current debate around governance standards in smaller authorities seems doomed to fall, let us reinvent ourselves in readiness for the massive new workload coming our way: Electronic AGAR; LG reorganisation; new Practitioners’ Guide, Member and Officer Standards reform, just for starters.
We can either lay back and let it be done to us. Or we can be in the vanguard of experts, driving, arguing, teaching, breaking down barriers, leading.
I know which way I will be going.
How about you?
Think Piece by George Wisz
