Internal auditors in South Africa are often not trained, or supposed to acquire skills in the application of global standards 'on the job'.
There are several advantages in training internal auditors up to competency in auditing principles and practices. ISO19011 offers guidelines for quality or environmental management systems auditing. The standard is also used in auditing safety, health, HACCP (food and beverage processing) management systems.

Most ISO certification institutions accept 19011as the foundation for measuring their own auditors. The standard offers a certification auditing table (ISOI 19011 guide p27).
Assessment of Internal auditors themselves, are classified under 'similar audits'. ISO requires these qualities of internal auditors:
Education: secondary education
Work experience: 5 years
Work experience related to discipline being audited: 2 years
Auditor training: 40 hours
Audit experience: 120 hours in the presence of a lead auditor.
Do your internal auditors fit this profile? Using auditors not trained in their specific auditing discipline is also contradictory to local SAQA and SETA frameworks and process, which require 'competent' people to empower their colleagues.
The word 'competent' refers to a balance between 'knowledge and skills' relevant to the aspects to be audited.
SA legislation refers increasingly to employers appointing 'competent' people to assess health and safety, and other disciplines, in their organisations. Audits by untrained and unskilled auditors, would not hold up in inspections, enquiries, or legal proceedings.

Continuous improvement

In line with the continuous improvement principle in the ISO and OHSAS standards, employers should constantly increase the effectiveness of their management systems, their external audit results, and thus of their internal auditors. Internal auditing quality is a key to increasing compliance, and reducing non-conformances to required standards. Thus internal auditing quality determines external auditing results.
Internal auditors thus save on time and costs, by keeping operational practice aligned to required standards, ahead of external audits.[www.minerschoice.co.za]

* Christel Fouche is MD of Advantage ACT.

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