Jessica Fox & Holly Bailey on sport, leadership, and redefining 'playing like a girl'. Listen now
There is a wealth of documentation plus accepted standards and guidance to assist Directors and committee members ensure their organisations have strong integrity frameworks in place in order to ensure compliance with obligations relating to financial crime.
The actions they must ensure are undertaken can be summarised into the following four key principles:
| 1 | Risk identification and assessment |
| Identify and assess risks annually and as operations change, which could include on a project-by-project basis; particularly regarding operations overseas | |
| 2 | Adequate procedures |
| Ensure that effective and proportionate procedures are in place to prevent, detect and respond to those risks | |
| 3 | Communication |
| Ensure that policies and procedures are effectively communicated to employees and suppliers and remain so through regular training and other activities | |
| 4 | Monitoring and review |
| Ensure ongoing monitoring of the relevance, existence and effectiveness of the overall integrity framework |
The above elements should be documented in a Fraud and Corruption Control Plan or similar, which demonstrates the organisation’s compliance with obligations as well as being a practical working tool to be followed and referenced.
Particular emphasis should be placed on how Australian charities and other Not for Profits respond to risks, allegations and regulatory enquiries into alleged financial crime within their organisation. It is imperative that the Control Plan prescribes and guides what actions must be taken, including preliminary triage assessments, investigations, dealing with potential perpetrators, internal and external communications including with volunteers and donors, and how to respond and report findings to Government funding bodies and regulators.
Further key standards and guidance can be found in:
Download a PDF version of the article.
