Board Approves Aggressive Readiness Audit Schedule

March 4 (NERC News)

The board approved the implementation of readiness audits for all control areas and reliability coordinators on a three-year cycle. The NERC compliance staff has been working tirelessly to implement this recommendation. The goal is to complete audits of the twenty largest control areas by June 30, 2004, with industry and FERC participation.

These efforts are well under way. A schedule has been agreed to by the control areas to be audited and the regions provided a list of volunteer auditors; teams of auditors are now being assigned. The first twenty audits will be completed by June 30. NERC will seek feedback and suggestions to improve the process. After June 30, these audits will include reliability coordinators as well.

Documents needed to support the audit have been developed, including an initial audit process document, as well as questionnaires for the control area being audited, the neighboring control areas, and the responsible reliability coordinator. A team of five contract auditors has been assembled to represent NERC on these audits, although NERC will assign permanent staff to carry out these audits in the future.

NERC intends to make the final reports from these audits available to the public. A process to release this information will be developed by the Data Release Guidelines Task Force, which was established at NERC's February board meeting to ensure that the release of information resulting from readiness audits and compliance reviews is screened for commercially sensitive information and respects due process. – Dave Hilt