One repercussion of the Carillion collapse has been to highlight the importance of effective internal audit and raise awareness that the role is often outsourced. Deloitte earned £6.2m for providing internal audit services to the company from 2009 to 2017.

There is no evidence of internal audit failings contributing to Carillion’s demise. Nevertheless, the event serves as a prompt for reconsidering the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing internal audit, and how different models affect independence and objectivity.