Communications
Survey reveals serious lack of IT auditing in housing
The Housing Internal Audit Forum (HIAF) recently carried out an IT survey attracting responses from 68 of its members. The survey was undertaken in response to demand from its members and revealed the variety of housing management, (twenty systems in the sample surveyed) and financial IT systems that were in use. Almost half of the responses indicated that there had been no audit of those systems performed within the last twelve months and in 20% of organisations surveyed there was no IT disaster recovery plan.
HIAF Chair, Stephen French, commented: "We feel that IT is an area which has increasing importance to the sector in its pursuit of efficiency gains and as our survey revealed one also with elements of risk."
The Forum, which has over 200 members, has a dedicated IT officer who carried out this survey. It has also, with monies provided by a Tenant Services Authority Innovation & Good Practice grant, commissioned a series of Internal Audit Programme Guides including eight dedicated to IT review. These are available both on the Tenant Services Authority's and HIAF’s websites.