1 Introduction
This booklet is about internal control. I was reading a book on internal control by Olof Arwinge (Arwinge 2012) and one of the quotes from the foreword by Tomas Munkby, then head of business risk services at Grant Thornton, Sweden, was ‘A robust internal control system makes us prepared to go fast while not taking too many chances, much like how a car needs effective brakes in order to be able to go fast, and not slow.’ I really like this metaphor where internal control is compared to the breaks of a car. Breaks don’t help you to start the car but they do allow you to stop it so you can use the car a second and a third time. Similarly, internal control is in place to make sure an organization exists in the long term.
The booklet uses examples, stories, metaphors and applications to introduce the reader to the topic of internal control.