IIA-Australia Factsheet - Root Cause Analysis

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Author	IIA-Australia
Date	2022
Topics Explored	Internal Audit
Format	Factsheet
Extract/Description	Internal auditors detect issues when they perform audits, which are usually called ‘findings’ or ‘observations’. They then seek to identify a recommendation that will remediate the observation. In many cases, internal auditors will recommend a course of action that is merely a symptom (indicator) of the problem, rather than why the issue occurred in the first place. If internal auditors do not find the root cause, issues will continue to occur and future audit reports will continue to report the same issues, rendering internal audit a costly exercise in doing nothing useful.
Key Points	RCA is a systematic process for identifying the real, underlying, cause of an error, problem, missed opportunity, or instance of non-compliance. It can identify an approach for responding to the problem. Root cause will often be behavioural. When RCA is used, audit reporting is completed in the normal manner, except the quality of the observation will be enhanced as will the recommendation.
Relevant Industries	All
Level of Assumed Knowledge	Intermediate