Audit Apprentice Review

I work in audit for the public sector. This means looking at government department accounts and other non-departmental bodies that work close with government. As an audit apprentice I am responsible for testing client evidence to make sure we can provide assurance over the clients work. We do this by testing different assertions. This means I will attend many meetings and communicate with clients to ask for robust evidence. I then have to check the amounts, dates, eligibility, regularity, classification and accuracy of the data provided to me.

I have learnt technical skills such as who to use datasnipper, excel. I has learnt how to analyse data and challenge data by using my professional judgement. I have learnt how to organise my workload and communicate to my team members about my work pace.

So far I have enjoyed my time at the NAO, I feel sometimes I may be throw in the deep end but not too much it is frightening but enough to challenge myself. I have been given tasks that allow me to take responsibility over the work I have done . It has provided me with good knowledge that support my studies towards becoming a chartered accountant.

The programme is quite well structured by spreading out our exams and making sure they do not occur during our busy season for final audit. This is all in a calendar well in advance for us to see. I believe they could be more reasonable with the resit timings as it usually is one week after you fail the first attempt. And I believe that we never used to be given time to do our reflective hours in work- or if you did you would have to ask for it.

We have now been told we will receive time to conduct our reflective statements. We also get one day of study leave which I think is quite nice. But as I said above I believe they could be more reasonable with the resit timings as it usually is one week after you fail the first attempt.

Bpp has lots of resources for us to use such as mock exams, a question bank, more topic quizzes, further practice questions, videos and a forum where you can ask questions to the tutors. I believe this is really helpful. This has enabled me to pass all of my exams so far.

We have to complete some skills and behaviour reflective statements about our work so far at NAO but this is for BPP to mark. They then provide us with feedback on our reflective statement submissions. This allows us to focus on areas of improvement within a work environment and allows us to think about our strengths and weaknesses as an Audit Apprentice.

there are sports teams that anyone at nao can join but this costs us to join so myself personally I do not participate in any but I am considering joining the netball team. There's a Christmas party, football club, movie quiz. However I do believe there should be more events or networking events for apprnetices.

Yes

It is a really nice company to work for because the workforce is so diverse and the people here do take the time to listen to you and help you when they can. There's lots of inclusive networks we can join and lots of opportunities to vary your work like working on VFM report.

Make sure your application lists/weaves in NAO values/key competencies they want you to have (that are on the application page). I suggest researching a VFM study you are interested in and relate it to one of your interests/passions/subjects at school. You do not need to know it in detail whatsoever just maybe a few facts. Also research the difference between private and public auditing as we are public auditors.