BRITISH TOURIST AUTHORITY TRADING AS VISITBRITAIN ...

VisitBritain and VisitEngland
Annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 st March 2010
STATEMENT ON INTERNAL CONTROL (continued)
There is an independent Audit Committee chaired by a Board Member with appropriate financial expertise supported by a seconded
finance professional. The Audit committee oversees the control environment and risk management framework and receives reports from
our internal and external auditors on our system of internal control.
BDO LLP provides VisitBritain’s internal audit service. An annual programme of work is agreed with the Audit Committee on those areas
which are known to be of higher risk or may be of an innovative nature or where it is appropriate to carry out a more basic review of
existing systems.
The work is amended as defined by VisitBritain’s continuous review of its needs and as the priorities for management change. The work
is regularly reviewed and adapted as necessary with the consent of the Audit Committee.
All work undertaken by BDO LLP is operated to the standards defined in the Government Internal Audit Standards. They submit reports
that include their independent opinion on the appropriateness and effectiveness of VisitBritain’s internal controls, together with their
recommendations for improvement. The appropriate managers and directors at VisitBritain provide formal management responses to
these recommendations.
In 2009/10 this work covered:
A follow-up review to provide assurance that appropriate procedures exist, and are in operation, to cover aspects of human
resources;
A review of head office controls being applied to overseas offices and the self assessment framework;
A full review of the operations being applied within England Marketing;
An audit of the preparations in place for the office move that took place in the year;
An annual review of the core financial systems; and
A contracts compliance audit was carried out in the area of commercial income;
At the Audit Committee in June 2010 I received the Annual Internal Audit Report for 2009/10. Without giving specific assurance on the
effectiveness of the whole system of internal controls within VisitBritain it states that from their involvement as internal auditors the
control environment appears to be well supported by various embedded mechanisms and working practices.
In their opinion and on the assumption that internal audit recommendations are implemented, VisitBritain has a sound framework of
control in the areas reviewed which they are satisfied should provide assurance regarding the effective and efficient achievement of
VisitBritain's objectives.
My management team has provided me with assurance that the review carried-out in 2008/09 on the effectiveness of data security is still
applicable and the controls that were considered to be in place then continue to operate as intended. In addition VisitBritain holds only
small quantities of personal information in a fully compliant environment and I consider the overall level of risk to be low.
In addition to the work of Internal Audit, assurance is also received from management e.g. monthly review of management accounts by
budget holders and the oversight monitoring arrangements, for example the ‘Control Self Assessment’ questionnaire completed by
overseas offices. My review of effectiveness is also informed by the work of the NAO in their management letter.
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