The Audit Learning Centre (ALC) website is an initiative developed jointly between IPF and Leeds City Council’s audit department, aimed at helping audit departments and individual auditors assess and appraise their performance and then manage their audit learning in a structured way.

The ALC builds on the principles set out in Leeds City Council’s award winning entry for the CIPFA Cliff Nicholson Award for Innovation and Excellence in the field of audit – a Competency and Skills Matrix - which was highly commended. The Leeds model was expanded in the 2006 CIPFA publication The Excellent Internal Auditor: A Good Practice Guide to Skills and Competencies.

The Audit Skills Framework – which forms the backbone of the performance measurement and learning facilitated by the ALC – identifies the skills that all auditors should have, these being split into three main areas: Behavioural skills, Technical skills and Management skills, with more specific categories and subcategories sitting beneath these.

The Behavioural skills are: Negotiating, Influencing, Communication, Assertiveness, Enthusiasm and initiative, Team work and Professionalism. The Technical skills are: Audit methodology and scope, Analytical review, Testing, Sampling and IT skills. The Management skills are Performance management, People management and Leadership. See figure below.

The ALC also allows the addition of extra skills to the framework. This gives organisations the option to include competencies which have been highlighted as specifically important to the aims of their department or organisation.

The Audit Skills Framework and the ALC itself provide a structure which allows organisations to gain a snapshot of the skills audit teams should have, and also to drill down to a finer level of granularity to ascertain auditors’ approaches to specific work situations and audit scenarios.

The ALC enables teams and individuals to create and manage records of post audit assessments, following each audit assignment or group of assignments. A post audit assessment is undertaken between an individual auditor and their manager with the individual auditor first inputting their view of their performance during an audit or group of audits, measured against the core audit skills identified in the Audit Skills Framework. The manager then does the same.

Mean scores input by the manager are calculated, and along with additional notes input, the assessment process flags up any areas for development or training needs to be addressed. The next stage of the process is to undertake an appraisal, when individuals sit down with their managers to discuss their performance, and complete the appraisal form on the ALC.

The ALC provides the tools to address an individual’s learning needs. The ALC uses an audit learning cycle. See figure below.

This process allows auditors to review their learning needs, set learning objectives, create a learning plan (which draws learning materials from the ALC or the organisation’s own knowledge base), and finally reflect on learning undertaken. The ALC provides auditors with a knowledge base of guidance and access to e-publications, courses and events.

The ALC enables users to upload and access key team documents securely and provides a discussion forum which enables interaction with audit colleagues from the wider audit community.

CIPFA is one of the leading professional accountancy bodies in the UK and the only one which specialises in the public sector. It is responsible for the education and training of professional accountants and for their regulation through the setting and monitoring of professional standards. Uniquely among the professional accountancy bodies in the UK, CIPFA has responsibility for setting accounting standards for a significant part of the economy, namely local government.

CIPFA’s members work, often at the most senior levels, in public service bodies, in the national audit agencies and major accountancy firms. They are respected throughout for their high technical and ethical standards, and professional integrity. CIPFA also provides a range of high quality advisory, information and training and consultancy services to public service organisations.

Leeds City Council's Internal Audit Section delivers a modern internal audit service to the council and a number of external clients. It recognises the importance of keeping fully abreast, through CPD, of the constantly emerging issues facing both internal audit and the public sector in order to achieve excellence and add value. It is committed to ensuring all of its team are fully equipped with the knowledge and experience required in order to deliver a high quality audit service. The section is fully engaged in contributing to the wider audit agenda and has been represented on a number of recent CIPFA working groups including, The Code of Practice for Internal Audit in Local Government in the UK 2006, the Rough Guide to the Statement on Internal Control and The Excellent Internal Auditor.