The Committee sought clarity on the number of Internal Auditors that are to be employed by the Department for the 2013/14 financial year and whether the outsourcing of the Internal Audit function was more cost effective. The Department indicated that a cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken in this regard and the outcome therein was that it was more cost effective to outsource the Internal Audit function. The Department further reported that there was one permanent employee who managed the outsourcing of the Internal Audit function given the fact that it was a relatively small department. An amount of R600 thousand was spent on consultants for this function in the 2012/13 financial year and R1.7 million has budgeted for same in the 2013/14 financial year. The Committee stated that there was a need for the Department to establish internal capacity and/or shared services for an internal audit function as prescribed in the Public Finance Management Act.