Certified Inspector General® Curriculum

Areas of Instruction — Core Competencies

The Association has identified six broad areas of core competency for inspectors general and their senior staff. The Institute program’s five-day curriculum covers the following six core competency areas:

  • Context of the inspector general function
  • Ethics
  • Legal issues
  • Public management issues
  • Investigating fraud, waste, and abuse
  • Audits, inspections, and reviews

Course Learning Objectives and Program Content

Overview of the Inspector General Function

  • The history of the inspector general concept
  • Typology of inspectors general: federal, state, and local
  • The key factors, such as independence, responsibility, and authority

Ethics and the Inspector General

  • The source of ethical standards
  • The nature and role of ethics laws
  • The practical application of ethical issues to the responsibility of inspectors general

Legal Issues

  • How the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution impact the conduct of investigations and reviews by offices of inspectors general
  • The impact of employment law on the conduct of investigations and reviews

Public Management Issues

  • Current issues in public management and how they impact offices of inspectors general

Audit, Inspections, and Review

  • The various approaches to audits, inspections, and reviews
  • The skills required to manage the audit function and challenges to managing audits
  • The standards applicable to audits, inspections, and reviews
  • The importance of internal and management controls to audits, inspections, and reviews and sources of standards for controls
  • The audit process and quality control
  • The similarities and differences between audits and investigations

Investigating Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

  • How to establish an effective investigative unit
  • The source and limits of investigative authority and power
  • The investigative process and management issues raised by investigations
  • Approaches to investigations
  • Standards for the conduct of investigations
  • The similarities and differences between investigations and audits