Readers don’t need to be told that the audit profession has come in for a lot of public criticism of late. Too many unexpected failures of companies and phantom profits being reported are the cause, apart from simple inability to detect fraud. There are three important announcements today that aim to tackle these issues.
The first is the Kingman Review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) published by the BEIS. Sir John Kingman basically says that the FRC is not fit for purpose – it should be scrapped and replaced by a new body called the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA). Not exactly a catchy title but the objective is certainly clear.
He wants the new body to have wider powers and a clearer remit. He also criticises the “consensual” approach the FRC takes to regulatory work, that it has an inappropriate culture and staff recruitment is often informal. In summary it’s a pretty damning report on the effectiveness of the FRC and how it currently operates.
BEIS have also announced a review of audit standards by Donald Brydon which will look at the quality and effectiveness of the audit market.
Plus the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have proposed new legislation that would separate auditor work from consultancy activities (the latter is 75% of their revenue at present) – what they call a “structural break-up”. They also suggest that audits of the biggest firms (i.e. FTSE-350) be done by 2 firms of which one must be outside the big four audit firms. This might reduce their stranglehold on the market. The CMA also proposes “more regulatory scrutiny” of audit firms to ensure that not just the cheapest audit firm is selected. Does this mean there will be a lot more bureaucracy involved? Perhaps so.
No doubt all these proposals will be subject to public consultation so they may get watered down. But surely these are moves in the right direction.
See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/independent-review-of-the-financial-reporting-council-frc-launches-report and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-proposes-reforms-to-improve-competition-in-audit-sector for more information.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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