DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY
Food and Veterinary Office
Operational and administrative services
Grange, 05/03/2015
MW/ST/TV
Summary Report
Subject: Meeting of the "Audit Evidence" Working Group of the NAS Network, held at Grange, 25 and 26 February 2015.
Participants: Marek Soph (CZ), Patrick de Araujo (FR), Kovácsné Pálfi Katalin (HU), Adriana Costache (RO), Goran Engstrom and Mats Peterson (SE), Kevin Nadle (UK), Maura Waters, Sara Tavares and Telmo Valinhas (FVO).
The session began with the distribution of the draft reference document on Audit Evidence (Draft Version 1, Rev.2). The draft presented included the output of the first meeting of the working group of 28-29/01/2015 and comments received from some representatives.
The supporting documents used during the discussions (meetings of 28-29/01/2015 and 25-26/02/20125) were:
· “Internal Audit Practice”, chapter on “Gathering and analysing information”
· Court of Auditors’ “Performance Audit Manual”, Chapter 4 Examination Phase
· Commission “Internal Audit Practice”, chapter on “Gathering and analysing information”
· Scoping paper on Audit Evidence from NAS Network meeting September 2014
· Training material from BTSF Training of Conducting an Audit
· ISO Standards
The main aim of this meeting was to continue the development of the reference document with a view to presentation at the next NAS Network plenary session in March 2015.
After an initial "tour de table" where the participants expressed their agreement with the direction the document is taking the WG decided to continue with the development of the document.
The main work of the WG was:
· Work on the section "Background" and section on “Definitions” was simplified.
· Developing the Section on Evidence Collection planning.
· Section on “Validation of audit evidence” changed to “Verification of audit evidence” and subdivided into “Verification” and “Validation”.
· Decision to remove section on Evaluation of audit evidence as this would fit better in a separate document.
· Four new annexes were introduced reflecting examples of a mind map on Audit Evidence provided by IRL, a diagram of the audit process, an evidence matrix provided by FR and a diagram of an audit map and root-cause analysis.
The next step will be to send the draft of the reference document (Draft Version 1, Rev. 2 – 25-26/02/2015) to the WG for comments. After this, the draft reference document will be sent to the NAS Network experts for consultation with the objective of presenting at the next NAS Network meeting, in Grange, scheduled for the 26-27 March 2015.
Maura Waters / Sara Tavares / Telmo Valinhas
Attached: Draft reference document on Audit Evidence (Draft Version 1, Rev.2 25-26/02/2015).
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