Advocacy Round-up: July 2025

Over the past few months, we’ve achieved significant progress in raising the profile and influence of the Chartered IIA and the internal audit profession through our advocacy efforts – the key highlights are included below.

 

Independent Water Commission

In April, we responded to the Independent Water Commission’s call for views, following an invitation to engage from the Water Minister and DEFRA officials. In our response, we highlighted that several water suppliers operating in the South East of England currently do not have internal audit functions. We urged the Commission to recommend making internal audit a mandatory regulatory requirement across England and Wales—mirroring the approach taken in other regulated sectors such as financial services. It’s also worth noting that internal audit is already mandatory for water companies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, where they are publicly owned. So, this is also about ensuring there is a consistent regulatory approach across the UK. Our water sector advocacy also aligns with our strategic advocacy objective that all organisations regarded as public interest entities should be required to have internal audit as an integral part of their governance structure.

 

Audit Reform and Digital Resilience

In May, we partnered with ISACA to coordinate a joint letter to the Business Secretary, emphasising the urgent need for audit reform legislation to enhance digital resilience. The letter was signed by an influential group of stakeholders, including the CEOs of Airmic, CREST, the Chartered Governance Institute, CompTIA, IASME Consortium, Sheffield University’s Audit Reform Lab, The National Preparedness Commission, NEDonBoard, and ShareAction. It was also endorsed by Sir Donald Brydon, Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones, and Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, as well as Dr Vladlena Benson MBE and Adrian Jolly, Co-Founder of the Institute of Corporate Resilience.

The letter underscored strong stakeholder support for the long-promised Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill, announced in last year’s King’s Speech but still awaiting publication. It called for legislation to strengthen the powers of the Financial Reporting Council, widen the definition of a public interest entity and to ensure that the UK’s largest companies report on their resilience to both digital and financial risks.

Following a series of high-profile cyberattacks on major retailers, we reiterated these key messages in a letter to the editor published in The Times. We also wrote an opinion piece on the topic for Board Agenda.

 

Protecting Pensions Through Stronger Internal Audit Requirements

In June, we published our latest Parliamentary Briefing, Protecting Pensions Through Stronger Internal Audit Requirements. The briefing outlines our engagement with The Pensions Regulator on their Code of Practice and the need to strengthen its language around internal audit. Currently, not all large companies operating trust-based or in-house pension schemes are required to have internal audit—unlike contract-based schemes run by financial services firms, which are regulated by the FCA and therefore must have internal audit. This creates a regulatory gap.

We also met with Debbie Abrahams MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, to brief her on the issue. We are now working with her to table a series of Parliamentary Questions.

 

Driving Growth with Internal Audit: Summer Parliamentary Reception

In July, we hosted our Summer Parliamentary Reception at the House of Commons. The evening’s theme was ‘Driving Growth with Internal Audit’, with speakers including Sandro Boeri, President of the Chartered IIA; Mary Glindon MP; Dame Meg Hillier, Chair of the Treasury Select Committee; and Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

We were also pleased to welcome members of our Audit Leaders service, several Audit Committee Chairs, and a number of parliamentarians, including Florence Eshalomi MP, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, and Baroness Anne Pickering.

 

 

Summary of Recent Press Mentions

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