How we can help: value-added services

To remain relevant in today’s rapidly changing environment, we constantly strive to deliver services that our stakeholders value, rather than only traditional financially-focused internal audit services. We develop and maintain the following areas to help increase our value to the university:

• Anticipate the needs of our stakeholders.
• Establish and maintain communication channels with all key stakeholders. Involve them in the audit planning, and ask stakeholders what they think about the value of our work.
• Develop forward-looking risk management practices.
• Support the governance responsibilities of oversight, insight and foresight.
• Advanced understanding of the university's strategic, legal, business and compliance risks.
• Communicate risks in the context of the university’s goals and objectives.
• Align the Audit Plan to the objectives contained within UVic's Strategic Plan.  
• Respond proactively to identify and monitor emerging IT risks.
• Continue to improve data analysis skills and techniques to enhance audit findings. Data analytics allows the department to test entire populations of data rather than sampling, and increases the likelihood that the Internal Audit department will identify fraudulent activity.
• Recruit, motivate, and retain knowledgeable and experienced audit team members.

Over the past three years our team has undertaken a number of non-traditional value-added projects including:

• pre- and post-implementation reviews of UVic's ONECard program
• development of a fraud response action plan
• serving on the project team for long-term disability review
• conducting IT general control's reviews, which was relied upon by the Provincial Auditor General's office