CIAN celebrates its 25th anniversary
The CIAN birthday cake and speakers at the CIAN anniversary event.
Internal auditors working in the charity sector play an essential role in an increasingly tough environment. So it’s good news for all involved that The Charities Internal Audit Network (CIAN) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with a full-day event and important developments in the support it offers – in particular a newly designed and more functional website.
CIAN was established by a handful of volunteers who recognised the need to offer guidance to, and share experiences among, internal auditors working in a sector that has great need of good governance, but often extremely small budgets. It now has 158 members and provides quarterly meetings hosting a range of expert speakers from organisations including the National Cyber Security Centre and the Chartered IIA. In addition, it offers training events and networking sessions, all of which can be a vital source of information and help for internal auditors.
“Internal audit in the charity sector is under-resourced even though strong audit is so needed in the sector at the moment. The more I speak to our members, the more I realise how vital CIAN is” says Vanessa Clark, Chair of the network. “Some of our members have no budget at all for continuing professional education (CPE) and others don’t have a single full-time audit position in their organisation, so what we provide is hugely valuable.”
To celebrate the birthday milestone, CIAN held a full-day event on 24 July with speakers including Paul Manning, president of the Chartered IIA, Anulka Clarke, head of assurance at the ICO, and a session on building better professional relationships with senior management and the audit committee. The event also included a presentation on the findings of the network’s annual benchmarking survey and details of a rebranding exercise – which includes a new logo and, most importantly, a redeveloped website. The day finished with birthday cake and a long networking session to give all attendees the chance to find out what others in the sector are doing.
The new website will go live in September. To find out more about CIAN and what it offers internal auditors in the sector contact info@cian.org.uk or visit www.cian.org.uk
This article was first published in September 2019.
