the Transparency & Compliance Senior Officer contributes to controlling, on a risk-based audit approach, the implementation of ACTED’s processes in compliance with ACTED’s guidelines, specific donor guidelines, best practices, and national regulations in the relevant country.

S/he is responsible for developing and actively contributing to action plans to mitigate the risks identified, in collaboration with his/her manager.

S/He provides technical support and capacity building to the Transparency & Compliance staff to implement the action plan and address the issues.

S/he provides technical support and works to build the capacity of the FLATS teams to identify difficulties, propose action plans and follow them up.

S/He also leads on technical support for donor external audits and due diligences preparation and follow-up.

S/He should comply and ensure compliance to the audit code of conduct.

Objectives

Under the supervision of his/her direct supervisor, the Transparency and Compliance Senior Officer must independently:

1)    Manage the FLATS compliance process and internal audit by :

a)    Using a risk-based audit approach, organizing and implementing controls on the implementation of Acted procedures in each bases in accordance with :

-       Acted manuals of procedures,

-       Donors’ specific procedures,

-       Best practices

-       National legislation

b)    Developing and participating in action plans approved by T&CM and HQ;

c)     Perfom monthly compliance tasks in accordance with the monthly compliance review plan

d)    Proactively document recommandations and lessons learnt in AUD-05 to improve current process implementation and cover identified risks.

2)    Coordinate the preparation, on-site visit (including travel) and follow-up of external audits of donors/third parties and due diligences;

3)    Training, lessons learned and best practices: provide training sessions to reinforce the level of compliance of the teams (and partners involved if required), raise alerts and propose improvements to Acted's current procedures, based on lessons learned and best practices.

4)    Facilitate internal coordination and communication in the T&C team : traveling and supervising the assigned T&C team to assist them in carrying out their tasks.

5) Upon request, manage fraud cases

Duties and Responsibilities

1.     Management of the FLATS and program compliance process

The Transparency and Compliance Senior Officer must know ACTED's policies and procedures and must ensure that they are properly implemented on the assigned area. S/he must independently:

·      Planning and coordinating the compliance tasks: monthly compliance reviews and relevant ad-hoc spotchecks of FLATS and program departments, including field visits;

·      Choose significant and relevant samples (including partners expenses) to be used as a basis for monthly compliance reviews;

·      Consolidate the results and analyses arising from the compliance reviews and ad-hoc spotchecks in order to flag risks and share lessons learned with the relevant departments, validated by T&CM and HQ;

·      Plan and coordinate the monthly monitoring of the action plan for implementing the AUD-05 recommendations in collaboration with the relevant departments;

·      Report to the line management any difficulties encountered by each department in implementing Acted procedures and propose mitigation measures;

·      Report risky compliance alerts or suspected fraud to the T&CM;

·      Conduct the partner due diligences, vetting and organize monitoring of the implementation of risk reduction plans;

• Analyze and consolidate the information shared for the monthly compliance report and the related capital annexes (FLA-04, FLA-02, FLA-05, FLA-06, AUD-05 and lessons learnt);
• Update the compliance report (hot issues, main compliance issues spotted, tasks completed and coming tasks) and ensure information in the related annexes are up to date (MCR) before sharing them with the T&C manager;
• Update shared T&C folder to ensure all the task performed and relevant information/documents shared are documented and archived.
• Consolidate information shared and plan upcoming internal, external audits, spotcheck and due diligences (AUD06)

S/he must also support the T&C team:

·      Collect, based on the relevant sample, the necessary documents from the departments and ensure the quality of the organization of their physical and digitized filing systems, in accordance with FLA-01 guidelines;

·      Complete the FLA-02 "Compliance checklist" on a monthly basis to ensure that FLATS documentation is compliant, report any non-compliant issues, propose corrective action plans and improvement suggestions where necessary;

·      Carry out monthly "Quotes & Invoices Investigation" (FLA-05), analyze results and report any fraud risk;

·      Complete the FLA-06 "Staff files checklist" on a monthly basis to ensure that personnel files are compliant, report any non-compliant issues and propose corrective action plans and improvement suggestions where necessary;

·      Ensure the implementation of compliance tasks associated with expenditure (including supply chain traceability, market survey, review of FLATS and program documentation, etc.) ;

·      Conduct the relevant ad-hoc spotchecks for the hub FLATS and program departments.

2.     Preparing, carrying out and monitoring external audits

The Transparency and Compliance Senior Officer must be familiar with the external audit procedures for each of the projects implemented and ensure that they are properly prepared, implemented and monitored. S/he must independently:

·      Update FLA03 : Analyze Grant contracts with donors and donor guidelines in order to anticipate audit terms and conditions;

·      Participate in the audit firm selection follow up;

·      Manage the preparation of external audits in close collaboration with the HQ Audit Department, the T&C manager, the logistics, HR, finance teams and partners;

·      Communicate with all HoD and coordination the external audit deadlines, sample and corrective action follow up;

·      Draft answers to the internal control questionnaire and attach the appropriate documentation;

·      Consolidate the submission of supporting documents requested by the external auditors by reviewing the "Compliance Checklists" (FLA-02) completed by the T&C team and the supporting documents;

·      Contribute and facilitate audits and participate in kick off meeting and close out meeting of each external audit;

·      Draft (if required) the external audit follow-up files (AUD-01) and participate in the preparation and dissemination of lessons learned and good practice;

·      Identify with support of the T&C team, summarize, quantify and communicate the identified risk during the preparation review to the T&C manager;

·      Review lessons learned and drafted recommendations to be incorporated into the management of the FLATS and program compliance process and followed on AUD-05 after T&CM validation ;

·      After each external audit, summarize internal control and ineligibles risks to T&CM

·      Follow the audit report reception and review/draft the responses to these reports;

·      Coordinate the communication and follow-up of external audit recommendations implementation with the departments concerned (AUD02)

·      Update the information of the relevant annexes of the MCR (FLA06, FLA03, AUD02, AUD05)

S/he must also support the T&C team  :

·      Facilitate each external audit, by collecting, consolidating, and reviewing the selected supporting documents, identifying and rectifying any anomalies and sending the "Compliance checklists" (FLA-02) to his/her direct supervisor.

3.     Preparing, carrying out and monitoring internal audits

The Transparency and Compliance Senior Officer is responsible for assessing and strengthening the level of compliance of the various departments in each of the bases in his/her hub by implementing the internal audit plan once shared and validated by the T&CM. S/he must work independently on:

• Based on audit work, fraud risk, upcoming external audit, context of the mission and HoD feedback, consolidating the main compliance risks and issues inherent in its assigned hub in order to propose the relevant reviews to be included in the internal audit plan (AUD-06);

·      Preparing/Reviewing the Terms of Reference (AUD-03), checklist (AUD-08) and testings tools and sending them to his/her direct supervisor and to T&CM for validation prior to any internal audit;

·      Planning and supervising internal audit assignments in accordance with the audit plan (AUD-06), the ToRs and the ACTED internal audit methodology by developing the necessary testing tools;

·      Conduct kick of meeting and close out meetings with the relevant department and coordination;

·      Conduct interviews with appropriate members of each departement audited;

·      Review the work (AUD08 and testing files), the action plan (AUD-04B) and the audit report (AUD-04A) for validation by his/her direct supervisor and T&CM before sharing it with the departments concerned;

·      Make sure the internal audit recommendation tracking file (AUD-05) with validated recommendations (also from investigation) and others relevant MCR annexes are updated;

• Coordinate the monthly sharing and monitoring of the action plan for the implementation of the AUD-05 recommendations in collaboration with FLATS and program departments;
• Review and validate the recommandation implementation follow up on the internal audit recommendation tracking file (AUD-05);

·      Present the result of the internal audit and recommandations to HoD and coordination

S/he must also be able to :

·      Carry out internal audit testing in accordance with the audit plan (AUD-06), the validated Term of references (AUD-03) and the ACTED internal audit methodology (by completing the internal audit checklists and documenting each review using the associated testing files or by developing them);

• Complete the internal audit checklists AUD-08 : draft findings and flag risks based on interviews and appropriate documented testing carried out (using the associated testing files or by developing them);
• Based on implementation feedback from department, carry out appropriate testings to evaluate recommandation implementation;

4.     Training sessions / lessons learn / best practices

The Transparency and Compliance Officer will help to improve compliance competences by proposing training sessions on specific process in the procedures, based on internal and external audits compliance review conclusions. S/he will :

·      Provide practical training on specific aspects of ACTED procedures;

·      Provide technical support to the FLATS and program department to mitigate the risk identified;

·      To contribute to the proactive dissemination and use of lessons learned and recommandations during audit activities (internal and external audits) and investigation among national and international staff;

• Process improvement : In collaboration with the departement involved, reinforce current procedures and the quality of ACTED internal control, based on international best practices, donors’ requirements, and results of internal & external audits.
• Review and consolidate the lessons learnt, recommandations, specific donor’s rules, donor’s requirements and others relevant information to share them during project kick of meetings, PBM and close out meeting

Also, contribute to train the partners to the T&C tasks and bring the technical support.

5.     Internal Coordination

• Supervise and be accountable of the T&C team’s tasks by monitoring action plans and day-to-day activities;
• Review the work of the T&C team and provide full written feedback on their work as well as organize their appraisal;
• Ensure training and capacity building for the Compliance team members to increase the technical ability and skills within the department.

6.     Transparency

• Participate in minimizing risk of fraud and corruption by ensuring adherence to Acted FLATS procedures, Acted Code of Conduct and ACTED Policies;
• Upon request of the T&C manager, participate in Fraud cases investigations (credibility assessment, reporting, case follow up update, report drafting, investigation action plan…);
• Upon request of the T&C manager, participate in updating the cases follow up;
• Actively promote Acted’s anti-fraud and whistle blowing policy within all Acted offices of the mission.

7.     Other

• Provide regular and timely updates on task ongoing, progress and challenges to the direct line manager;
• Warn the direct line manager and T&CM in case some major problems arise with a potential financial or reputational impact on the mission;
• Proactively propose improvement and new tools to develop and support the T&C department;
• Participate to operational meetings and any other meetings as necessary;
• Perform any other related activities as assigned by direct line manager or T&CM
• Travel for any mission on the T&CM request

*Acted's proposed monthly salary: 1405 JOD's

Skills

Key Performance Indicators

-       % of risks identified during external audits already flagged during monthly review

-       % of timely and well completed submission of the hub’s monthly compliance reports.

-       % of ongoing project with external audit risk covered by the monthly review

-       % of project categories of expenditures reviewed in the compliance review

-       % of project expenditures reviewed in the compliance review

-       % of employee files reviewed in the compliance review.

-       % of implementation of external, internal audit and investigation recommendations or reported as difficult to implement with mitigation measure

-       Consolidated country Audit plans in place

-       # of internal audits conducted

-       Timely submission of internal and external audit reports

-       # of monthly contributions to the planning of the hubs audit plan.

-       # of targeted program spot checks proposed and conducted on a bi-annual basis.

-       # of targeted FLATS spot checks proposed and conducted on a bi-annual basis.

-       Frequency of updating tracking tools (lessons learned, recommandation, internal and external audit).

-       Frequency and quality of trainings provided to the T&C team s/he is responsible for.

-       Frequency of sharing and follow-up of recommendations with relevant departments

-       Quality and relevance of the lessons learned written up based on the work carried out/reviewed and anomalies identified

-       # of testing tools developed for specific ad-hoc spot checks

-       Regularity and quality of feedback to the T&C team for whom s/he is responsible

-       # of good quality ToRs and internal audit reports submitted

-       # of meeting conducted with the partners for RMP follow up

-       % of internal audit and investigation recommendations implemented at the country level

-       % of successful Due Diligences and external audits

-       % of implemented external audit recommendations

-       % Audit staff / IPs in the country provided with internal/external training during past 1 year

-       # of alert and action plans developed by the Audit department to improve system, process and practices

-       Lessons learnt and best practices recorded in the Lessons Learnt and Best Practices document according to Acted’s standard learning procedures in a consolidated document and updated in regular and timely manner

QUALIFICATIONS

• Postgraduate diploma in Audit, Finance, International Relations, Law or in relation with the position.
• 1-2 years of previous work experience in Audit (external and/or internal), Finance, Logistics, Administration or Law.
• Strong negotiation and interpersonal skills, and organizational terms.
• Demonstrate flexibility, dynamism, and autonomy.
• Ability to work well and under pressure.
• Excellent communication and writing skills in English.

·      Experience in management and training is a plus.

·      Strong analytical skills