State bodies likely to start screening audit committee members

State bodies are likely to start screening members of their internal audit committees for conflicts of interest and using formal procedures to select them in the first place, following a report from the Government’s financial watchdog.

An assessment by Comptroller and Auditor General, Séamus McCarthy, found that non-commercial State bodies are following the rules laid down for their audit committees in a 2009 code of practice that sets out the requirements for running these organisations.

However, Mr McCarthy’s argues that the code only contains basic requirements and, as a result, State bodies are not identifying if potential audit committee members could have conflicts of interest.

In his report, he called on these organisations to update their codes of practice to deal with this and to tackle other areas of concern, such as introducing formal selection criteria and standard letters of appointment for members, appraising their performance, and measuring committees’ effectiveness.

Responding to the report, Robert Watt, secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform pointed out that the code of practice is being updated and agreed to take Mr McCarthy's recommendations on board.