Quelles peuvent être les valeurs ajoutées de l'audit interne dans la performance des intercommunales ?

Abstract

Following scandals within the intercommunals in Belgium more precisely in Wallonia, some questions were raised concerning their ethics and good governance. Therefore, several reforms have been adopted to strengthen their supervision and good governance. Thus, since 2018, one of those reforms was the obligation for the intercommunals to set up an audit committee. To make this reform effective and useful, it became logical to create within the intercommunals organization chart, a unit responsible for internal audit. The aim of this thesis is to show the added value of internal audit in the performance of intercommunals. Our research focused only on the intercommunals in Wallonia. Therefore, we analyzed how internal audit can fulfil a value-added function in the performance of intercommunals. First, we have studied the justification for the existence of an internal audit service within the intercommunals with the purpose of determining the evolution and the constraints of this function. Secondly, we have determined the added values of internal audit in the performance of intercommunals. To this effect, we conducted interviews with different people holding different positions using pre-established interview outlines. Then, we expanded our research by also interviewing the intercommunals, which do not have an internal audit service. Finally, we opted for qualitative research to collect information. As a result, we have linked the outcomes from the interviewees to the various hypotheses that we have made. We also generated two tables summarizing our discussions and results