Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I wish to draw attention to section 51. I must declare a conflict of interest as I chaired the audit review group on behalf of the Government about five or six years ago and I am also a member of the audit and accounting supervising authority of the board of the same.

I draw the attention of the House to the demands and requirements under section 51. I thoroughly approve of every one of them but I wish to stress in particular that it confers upon the auditor an extreme level of independence and a requirement of independence and in subsection (1)(d) it also gives the auditor the authority to seek explanations and statements from past or present charity trustees in doing his or her work. I want to park it until I come to my next amendment but I will refer back to it. The requirements of an independent auditor are crucial and I approve of every one of them. Anyone dealing with auditing would have to approve of every one of them. They reflect very well the role of the auditor. People often think that because it is a charitable organisation, the demands of governance might in some way be less stressful. If ever there was a place to stress test, it is in a charitable organisation because they often deal with dry money and coins. It is necessary to have more demanding structures and strictures in place in a charitable organisation. Any large charitable organisation will have a large audit committee and probably an independent chairperson. Systems will have been put in place to ensure the money is collected, banked, counted and dealt with in appropriate ways. The independent auditor is someone who must be remote and independent of all those issues.