Without question, much has changed in the seven years since the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act became law. Since 2005, Protiviti has conducted an internal audit rebalancing survey to assess how organizations are relying on their internal audit departments for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance-related activities while seeking to “rebalance” these functions to also address more traditional audit responsibilities.
In the 2009 survey, one of the most interesting trends emerging from our analysis of the data is an apparent drop among organizations in activities and perceived benefits relating to the regulatory pronouncements from the SEC and PCAOB. Both were designed to ease compliance burdens among companies and facilitate a more efficient and streamlined attestation by external auditors of internal control over financial reporting. There could be several reasons behind this trend. Certainly there is a heightened regulatory environment in the wake of the many well-publicized bank and corporate failures worldwide. There also could be a general aura of “compliance conservatism” because of the global financial crisis that is impacting virtually every organization around the world. It also could be that the rate of changes being implemented by companies has slowed since it has been two years since the SEC’s and PCAOB’s announcements. We explore these and other themes further throughout this report.
This year’s survey, which was modified slightly from previous years, consisted of questions grouped into two divisions: “Rebalancing Strategy” and “Internal Audit Organization and Focus.” More than 600 respondents – a majority of whom are chief audit executives, audit directors and audit managers – took part by completing the survey in person or online.
Download the entire survey report:
(41 pages, 2.3 MB)
Rebalancing Poll