F4E Audit Committee holds its first meeting

On 10 February, the F4E Audit Committee held its first meeting in Barcelona. The Audit Committee is composed of five members (Stuart Ward, Philippe Coenjaarts, Jurij von Kreisler, Jean-Marie Haensel and Thomas O’Hanlon).

The Audit Committee was established by the F4E Governing Board (GB) last June for an initial period of two years as an advisory committee to the GB to provide an oversight of Financial Reporting and Accounting; Governance, Internal Control and Risk Management matters, and External Audit and Internal Audit.

In the first meeting of the Audit Committee the main points considered were the current status of the financial reporting in F4E, a review of F4E’s auditing environment, taking stock of the internal audits carried out in 2009 and 2010, and providing an opinion on the Internal Audit Plan 2011.

“I am very pleased with the outcome of the first Audit Committee meeting and the constructive spirit in which the discussions took place” said Stuart Ward, the Chair of the Audit Committee. He went on to add “We are looking forward to working together with the F4E Director and his staff to provide reassurance to the Governing Board”.

The Audit Committee is due to meet again in May and will report to the GB before the end of 2011 to present its findings, particularly concerning the actions taken by F4E in response to audit recommendations.