Our objective was to determine whether agencies identified their fraud and corruption risks and established adequate controls and supporting better practice arrangements to minimise the risks.
The specific lines of inquiry were:
- Have agencies identified their internally and externally generated fraud and corruption risks and established a plan setting out their approach to controlling their exposures?
- Have agencies implemented adequate controls and supporting policies and practices to prevent and detect fraud and corruption?
- Do agencies properly investigate and manage suspected fraud and corruption and address identified gaps in their control framework?
We examined fraud and corruption management in the following nine agencies:
- Department of Transport (DoT)
- Insurance Commission of Western Australia (ICWA)
- Murdoch University (MU)
- Polytechnic West (PWA)
- Rottnest Island Authority (RIA)
- Water Corporation (WC)
- Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS)
- Western Australian Land Authority (Landgate)
- Wheatbelt Development Commission (WDC).
Agencies were selected to include small, medium and large workforces; undertaking a variety of work; and therefore susceptible to a variety of fraud risks.
We interviewed agency representatives, and reviewed relevant documents such as risk assessment processes, risk registers, employment screening process, training programs, fraud escalation processes, detection plans, internal audit plans, reporting processes and whistle blower protection programs.
We interviewed members of the executive for each agency to gain insight into their understanding of the agency’s fraud processes and incidents.
We developed a maturity model to assess and highlight agencies’ progress in mitigating the risk of fraud and taking action if and when it does occur.
The audit did not specifically seek to detect acts of fraud or corruption rather we assessed agencies’ own capacity for fraud and corruption planning and resourcing, prevention, detection and responses.
The audit was conducted in accordance with Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards.