The responsibility of the Internal Auditing and Management Consulting (IAMC) Department Staff includes follow-up of all audit findings and recommendations to ultimate resolution. This function is accomplished through the IAMC Department audit follow-up program, which tracks the implementation of internal, external, and legislative audit recommendations.

The procedures involved in managing the program are:

• All recommendations and responses are input into the follow-up database, along with the implementation status and respective due dates.
• Biannually, implementation actions are reported to the UWF UBOT. Recommendations made in legislative audit reports are to be followed up within five months of the report date so that the most current information is provided to the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee.
• The Associate Vice President for IAMC will determine the implementation status of the recommendations included in the follow-up request. Factors considered include: the significance of the finding, potential exposure of non-implementation or ineffective implementation, interest expressed by upper management or third parties, or a past history of failed implementation efforts. The staff member performing the follow-up signs the follow-up request and submits it to the Associate Vice President for IAMC for review and  compilation with other responses.
• For follow-up purposes, if the auditee does not include an implementation date, the date of the audit report is considered the completion due date. To help ensure proper follow-up of Auditor General recommendations, the Associate Vice President for IAMC should assure that expected implementation dates and responsible auditees are specified as part of the coordinating of the University's responses.
• In the event the University cannot implement action as recommended in the audit report, the Associate Vice President for IAMC is to indicate agreement or disagreement with any alternatives stated and sign the follow-up document. If the Associate Vice President for IAMC is in disagreement with the alternatives or no alternative is provided, the Associate VP for IAMC will work with University administrators to resolve the issue. If the matter cannot be resolved in this manner, the issue will be referred to the University Board of Trustees' Finance, Administration and Audit Committee for action.

Section 11.45(7)(3), Florida Statutes, states that within six months after the publication date of a compliance audit report by the Auditor General's Office, agencies shall provide to the Legislative Auditing Committee a written explanation of the status of recommendations contained in the audit report.  To fulfill the requirements of Section 11.45(7)(e), information received from the audit follow-up requests is transmitted to the Chairperson, Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, with a copy to the appropriate University President.   To ensure the latest information is reported, the Associate Vice President for IAMC will follow up on all recommendations and report, within five months, the implementation status of these recommendations to the Auditor General.

AUDIT FOLLOW-UP OF PRIOR AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS

For each audit assignment, the auditor shall review, assess, and report on management's implementation of prior audit recommendations. Every audit program shall include steps requiring the auditor to identify and determine the current status of relevant prior internal audit recommendations which were included in audits issued within three years prior to the current audit period. For prior audit recommendations not implemented, the auditor should review the auditee's response included in the prior audit report, as well as any IAMC Department's review of implementation efforts performed pursuant to the follow-up program. For prior recommendations not implemented, the auditor should determine and report if implementation efforts are progressing satisfactorily.

If a prior recommendation was determined, through the formal follow-up program, to be implemented, and in the current audit the auditor finds it is no longer implemented, then the auditor shall document the current status of the recommendation, and determine the circumstances which may have hindered or precluded management from continuing to implement the recommendation. The focus of this process should be to facilitate implementation, and not to place blame for implementation efforts which were not effective. As part of this process, the auditor should request an explanation from management as to why the recommendation was not implemented. The auditor shall include an audit comment describing the current situation, management's efforts to correct it (where applicable), management's explanation of why the recommendation was not implemented, and the auditor's evaluation of management's action. The audit report should also include an appropriate recommendation for corrective action.