3 Susan Paullaos was recently appointed as a non－executive member of the internal audit co

3 Susan Paullaos was recently appointed as a non-executive member of the internal audit committee of Gluck and

Goodman, a public listed company producing complex engineering products. Barney Chester, the executive finance

director who chairs the committee, has always viewed the purpose of internal audit as primarily financial in nature

and as long as financial controls are seen to be fully in place, he is less concerned with other aspects of internal

control. When Susan asked about operational controls in the production facility Barney said that these were not the

concern of the internal audit committee. This, he said, was because as long as the accounting systems and financial

controls were fully functional, all other systems may be assumed to be working correctly.

Susan, however, was concerned with the operational and quality controls in the production facility. She spoke to

production director Aaron Hardanger, and asked if he would be prepared to produce regular reports for the internal

audit committee on levels of specification compliance and other control issues. Mr Hardanger said that the internal

audit committee had always trusted him because his reputation as a manager was very good. He said that he had

never been asked to provide compliance evidence to the internal audit committee and saw no reason as to why he

should start doing so now.

At board level, the non-executive chairman, George Allejandra, said that he only instituted the internal audit committee

in the first place in order to be seen to be in compliance with the stock market’s requirement that Gluck and Goodman

should have one. He believed that internal audit committees didn’t add materially to the company. They were, he

believed, one of those ‘outrageous demands’ that regulatory authorities made without considering the consequences

in smaller companies nor the individual needs of different companies. He also complained about the need to have an

internal auditor. He said that Gluck and Goodman used to have a full time internal auditor but when he left a year

ago, he wasn’t replaced. The audit committee didn’t feel it needed an internal auditor because Barney Chester believed

that only financial control information was important and he could get that information from his management

accountant.

Susan asked Mr Allejandra if he recognised that the company was exposing itself to increased market risks by failing

to have an effective audit committee. Mr Allejandra said he didn’t know what a market risk was.

Required:

(a) Internal control and audit are considered to be important parts of sound corporate governance.

(i) Describe FIVE general objectives of internal control. (5 marks)