Article

Benefits and leading practices for institution-wide compliance assessments

Sept. 8, 2020 · Authored by Cassandra Walsh, Meghan St. George

As part of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics’ (SCCE) Higher Education Compliance Conference, which convenes college and university compliance professionals from across the country, Baker Tilly and compliance leadership from a large public state system shared perspectives and tips for conducting institution-wide compliance assessments.

The discussion focused on the following topics:

Sharing key elements and benefits of compliance program assessments
Defining the role of the compliance function and other stakeholders in executing an assessment
Leveraging compliance program assessment results to improve risk management

What is an institution-wide compliance assessment?

It is an evaluation of the effectiveness and alignment of an institution’s compliance structure and processes relative to industry leading practices and federal expectations for compliance programs.

Why should your college or university perform an institution-wide compliance assessment?

There are several reasons to conduct such an assessment, including:

Expand compliance oversight and enhance your institution’s culture of compliance
Improve collaboration across various compliance functions and achieve stakeholder buy-in
Align resources with strategic priorities
Evolve compliance monitoring and improve responsiveness to institutional needs
Inform roles and responsibilities for compliance process owners
Assess how compliance roles are understood by the broader community
Provide a road map for the future state of the compliance function

Who is involved?

There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to building an assessment team.

An assessment team can include internal and/or external compliance leaders or subject matter experts (e.g., professional services, associations)
An internal team could perform a self-assessment for a recently established compliance program