After the church of Norway was converted into an independent legal subject, internal audits are deemed to be an important part of the inspection regime, in order to build up a good management structure and have an efficient use of resources.

The internal audits shall see to three main aims:

— ensure efficient use of resources and the follow-up of decisions made in the church meeting,

— see to independence and ensure robust inspection routines in the organisation,

— ensure that the division of assignments in the internal inspections between the regional and national organs is efficient and appropriate.

The internal audit shall ensure that:

— decisions made in the church of Norway's governing bodies are followed up,

— resource management is efficient and transparent,

— good internal inspection routines are established and that risk is reduced,

— the entity has regular focus on improvements,

— external rules and requirements are intercepted, for example, on information security,

— there are good decision routines,

— the trust between the manager, governing bodies and the rest of the organisation is good.

The internal audit shall report to the Church Council's director. It is important for the church of Norway that the internal audit is carried out across regional and national bodies and that contributions and ownership from both levels will be a decisive factor for a successful internal audit. In accordance with the church meeting's decision in case KM 13/17 'Supervisory board and the establishment of internal audits 2017', in which the church meeting asked to church council to 1) establish internal audits in 2017 and 2) procure an external manager for the internal audit, a decision has been made to establish internal audits in accordance with a model with an internal audit manager who will manage a team consisting of 5 persons from the organisation who will be bought in a 20 % position from their ordinary work tasks. The 5 members of the team are to resign from the organisation for the audit in order to ensure legal competence and the individual team members must not audit themselves, their areas of responsibility or their department.

Tenderers must follow certification or recognised international standards for internal audit. The IIA-standards (stipulated by the institute of internal auditors) or equivalent will be seen as a recognised standard.

The church of Norway would like a person from the tendering company to be the internal auditor. The offered internal auditor must have internal auditor education and experience. Documentation of competence can either be a diploma internal auditor (Dipl. I. R) that the Norske interne revisorers forening issues or certfied internal auditor (CIA) that the institute of internal auditors issues, or equivalent. The internal auditor must understand written and oral Norwegian (bokmål and nynorsk) and this must be confirmed.

The internal auditor will have the task of managing and planning the internal audit, building up the team's competence and coordinating the team's work. Such a model will ensure that the internal auditor team has good competence and knowledge of the area that is to be audited and good premises for giving relevant advice, recommendations and confirmations. The use of our employees in the audit team will also contribute to good learning and competence transfer internally in the organisation, through increased interaction between professional environments in the organisation.

The legal subject the church of Norway is still in an establishment phase after its conversion on 1.1.2017. There is a large need to get good internal audit routines in place, in addition to the established inspection regime, for the process of establishing the church of Norway as an independent legal subject, at the same time that 14 units are merged into one unit. The internal audit shall, therefore, also contribute to coordinating proposals for the preparation of internal audit routines in the organisation's start-up phase.

The internal audit shall coordinate its activity with the external auditor and the supervisory board in order to avoid duplicated work within the inspection regime established by the church of Norway.