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Board Paper on Assurance

  • Document type:
    Publication
  • Author:
    Department of Health
  • Published date:
    1 April 2002
  • Primary audience:
    Finance,Professionals
  • Publication format:
    Electronic only
  • Gateway reference:
    2002
  • Copyright holder:
    Copyright

Boards need to be confident that the systems, policies and people they have put in place are operating in a way that is effective, is focused on key risks and is driving the delivery of objectives. But the concept of assurance can be a source of misunderstanding and mismatched expectations. Potentially, there can be a lack of clarity within, and beyond the Board, as to what is meant exactly by the term 'assurance'. This can extend to uncertainty over the level of assurance required, where that assurance comes from and how the reporting of assurance is managed in a coordinated manner.

Although the process of securing assurance has always been a fundamental principle of good management and accountability there is now an additional requirement to give attention to the issue. From 2001/2002 all NHS Chief Executives will sign a Statement of Internal Control, which will form part of the statutory accounts and annual report. To provide this Statement, Boards need to be able to demonstrate that they have been properly informed through assurances about the totality of their risks, not just financial, and have arrived at their conclusions based on all the evidence presented to them.

This guidance has been issued to help NHS Board Members meet this challenge through the consideration of a formal organisational assurance framework. Every organisation will need to design its own framework, which will relate to the delivery of its own objectives within the context of an understanding of the principle risks that the organisation faces. Having said that, there are generic aspects to building an assurance framework and the thinking through of associated issues. Accordingly, the guidance is structured as follows:

  1. What assurance means in the NHS;
  2. Building an assurance framework;
  3. What sources of possible assurance are available to a Board and how those assurances can be coordinated.

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