Metodologías del Profesor

A questionnaire was structured to capture information about government audit committees.

Stakeholders in Victorian government organisations were invited to participate who were involved with chairing of audit committees, administrating and supplying information to audit committees. They were asked to express their perception of the role they aim to accomplish, and how they are achieving their objectives, including assurance (risk) and corporate governance. The

questionnaire was designed to seek responses to salient issues that affect performance, corporate governance, role, communications, stakeholder relationships between the Audit Committee management, internal audit and external audit, and issues identified from literature and from legislation (Audit Act – Victoria 1994, Victorian Financial Compliance Framework 2008,

Sarbanes-Oxley 2002, CLERP9 2004); professional bodies (Institute of Internal Auditors, AICPA – Audit Committee Effectiveness Centre 2000); and private sector surveys (Collier 1991) .

The questionnaire items were selected from questions from the Victorian

government performance assessment questionnaire (Appendix 3.4) and issues identified in the literature review. The factors within an audit committee were identified as their mandated role, attributes of members and the functions performed. The questionnaire also requested information about the audit committee’s major stakeholder partners – management, internal auditors and external auditors.

The questionnaire was designed to include open and closed questions. Closed- ended questions provide a fixed list of alternative responses and ask the

respondents to select one or more of the alternatives as indicative of the best possible answer (Rea & Parker 2005:259). Respondents are provided with opportunities to contribute additional information and to voice their views. The majority of answers to questions were closed questions. Questions also

provided a scaled response continuum measured from extreme strongly agree to extreme strongly disagree to be answered in accordance with a five-point Likert type scale in order to elicit attitudinal information from respondents (Rea & Parker 2005:68). This turns the question into a statement and asks the respondent to indicate their level of agreement with the statement by ticking a box or circling a response. (Collis & Hussey 2003:184). Likert scale provides a greater range of answers for respondents.

Questions for this research were pilot tested in conjunction with the Victorian Government’s Audit Committee Self-Assessment Questionnaire (Appendix 3.4) with the Audit Committee at Victoria Police.

Table 5.1 Data requested

SOURCE: From the Survey Questionnaire

GENERAL INFORMATION OF RESPONDENT’S ORGANISATION

 Name of the organisation.

 Gender of respondent - male or female.

 Organisation's role (as classified by the Victorian Auditor General).

 Number of people employed in the respondent organisation.

 Annual budget of the respondent organisation.

 Existence of an audit committee.

 Date of creation of audit committee.

 Number of independent members in the audit committee.

 Number of audit committee who are internal managers/Directors.

 Respondent’s role (position title) in the organisation.

 Independence of the Chairperson of the audit committee.

AUDIT COMMITTEE

 Define the role of the audit committee.

 Reporting chain of command for the Chairperson of the audit committee.

 Audit committee Charter.

 Attributes of audit committee members.

 Remuneration of external audit committee members.

 Amount each external independent Audit Committee member is paid each financial year.

 Audit Committee member’s engagement, induction, briefed on ethic, covered by insurance.

 Functions/Activities assigned to audit committee.

 Issues/practices are important in contributing to the success of audit committees.

 Performance reviews of the audit committee.

 Person performing Quality Assessment reviews.

INTERNAL AUDIT

 Chief Internal Audit Executive chain of command.

 Internal audit internally sourced, co-sourced or completely outsourced.

 Audit committee and the objectivity of the internal audit team.

 Audit committee and constructive feedback to the Chief Internal Audit.

 Audit committee and Internal Auditor services.

MANAGEMENT

 Managerial Head of the organisation. (Departmental Secretary, CEO, Chair of Board)

 Chief Financial Officer‘s role.

 Management support of the audit committee.

 Audit committee's relationship with management. EXTERNAL AUDITORS

 Victorian Auditor General.

 Audit Committee discuss issues with the external auditors.

GOVERNANCE

 Audit committee numbers, independence, charter, resources.

 Audit committee corporate governance activities of oversight of attributes of internal control, risk, and budget.

 Audit committee reviewing corporate risk management evaluations

 Audit committee oversee corporate performance.

ASSURANCE

 Audit committee overseeing the program and reports of the Internal Auditor.

 Audit committee ensure that the external auditors deliver professional service.

PUBLIC VALUE

 Audit committee influence over the achievement of public value on the following issues – transparency, compliance, stakeholder interest, resources, community, honesty, ongoing service, managing operations, internal control and environmental issues.

PERFORMANCE

 Current characteristics of the audit committee based on Sabia and Goodfellow’s classification of old or new type of audit committees.

5.5 ANALYSIS

The gathering of primary empirical data involved the use of an on-line

questionnaire. The questions within the questionnaire were developed based on the conceptual model explained in the Conceptual Framework chapter of this dissertation.

The empirical data from the survey questionnaire was collated within the Survey Monkey software. SPSS version 18 was used to analyse the data. Data

analysis included descriptive statistics (frequency, means) and inferential statistics (regression, ANOVAs, t-tests, exploratory factor analysis). These statistical analytical tools were selected to analyse the data collected to

determine their reliability and consistency, considering the variety of responses received.

5.6 ETHICS

The Victoria University Ethics Committee approved the conduct of the survey and the questionnaire used to gather data from targeted sources (Appendix 0.2). Confidentiality was assured in the questionnaire.

5.7 RESEARCH - PROBLEMS, EFFECTS & SOLUTIONS

A large number of public agencies in Victoria receive taxpayer budgeted funds and by legislation are required to be audited by the Victorian Auditor General under the Audit Act of 1994. The names of these organisations are reported in the Annual Report of the Auditor General to Parliament. The size of the

population meant that classification and sampling techniques had to be applied. The report of the Victorian Auditor-General provided categorisation of these organisations in his audit of these organisations. The decision in gathering data was based on materiality - to classify the organisations according to the amount of public moneys they receive. The Victorian government’s budget papers indicated that government departments received the major portion of taxpayer funds. Thus, using that criterion the research focused on the ten major state government departments and local government municipalities. In addition to this a small judgemental random sample of other public agencies, Universities and Water Bodies were requested to respond to the questionnaire to gain an appreciation of audit committees in public agencies. A response was sought from an audit committee of the Federal government’s financial policy

department and the response was statistically analysed and compared to the responses received from the state government organisations. In taking this sampling approach, the research was able to focus on the organisations that utilise material amounts of public funds, focusing on two levels of government, namely State government and local government. The response from the

financial policy development department of the Federal government provided an opportunity to compare Victoria’s policy against the Federal government’s policy on audit committees. Validity and reliability are discussed in chapter 7 of this thesis.