Part (c) for 6 marks required identification and explanation of controls that Tinkerbell should adopt to reduce the risk of fraud occurring again, as well as an explanation of how this control would mitigate the fraud risk. This question was answered well by most candidates, with some scoring full marks.

The scenario provided details of a “teeming and lading fraud” which had occurred during the year and candidates needed to think practically about how Tinkerbell could reduce the risk of this occurring again. Candidates were able to use the scenario to generate practical controls such as “review of bank reconciliations” and “segregation of duties between the roles of processing cash receipts and preparation of bank reconciliations”.

However, candidates’ performance on the second requirement to describe how the control would mitigate the risk of fraud occurring again was mixed. The main problem was that answers were not specific enough, frequently vague answers such as “this will reduce the risk of fraud and error occurring” were given.

This did not score any marks as it does not explain how the control will actually reduce the risk. For example, the review of bank reconciliations will reduce the risk as any unreconciled balances, even if small, will be identified and investigated.

A small minority of candidates failed to read the question properly and so provided weaknesses and then controls to address these, rather than controls and explanations of how these reduce risk.

Many candidates presented their answers in a columnar format and again this seemed to help them to produce clear and concise answers which covered both parts of the requirement.