Internal Control Environment

To help safeguard public assets, public entities need to develop a favorable control environment. Copies of internal control policies and procedures should be provided to all employees.

Equally important, however, is the tone set by management. To create a positive control environment, management should:

• Communicate to all employees the importance of internal controls;
• Demonstrate its own compliance with the entity's approved internal control policies and procedures;
• Take appropriate action against those who are not complying with approved internal control policies and procedures;
• Encourage employees to report exceptions not addressed by the policies; and
• Make employees feel comfortable when reporting potential wrongdoing or violations of policies and procedures.

For more information on internal controls, please see the Statement of Position entitled The Importance of Internal Controls on the OSA’s website here.

Updated: 02/15/2019

Date this Avoiding Pitfall was most recently published: 06/05/2020