As the government sets out plans for extensive reform of the audit market, accountants and auditors react to the plans with calls for a fixed timetable and concerns about unintended consequences, possibly creating a two-tier audit market

Plans to create a new audit regulator, the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) to replace the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), putting the new body on a statutory basis with a range of new powers, have been clarified in the audit white paper

The National Audit Office (NAO) has reported that less than half of local councils, local police and local fire bodies’ 2019-20 audits were completed by the revised deadline of 30 November 2020, despite this having been pushed back to take account of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

With announcements about a wide ranging overhaul of the audit profession, Simon Bittlestone, CEO of Metapraxis, argues that auditors fail to learn from the criticisms in the annual audit report inspections

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) delivered its Initial Investigation Report (IIR) in connection with its two-year probe, opened in February 2019, into certain aspects of KPMG’s audit of the financial statements of collapsed outsourcer Carillion plc for the year ended 31 December 2013

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has banned a corporate trustee and one of its directors from acting as pension scheme trustees after multiple governance failures which it said highlighted a lack of competence, capability and integrity

Grant Thornton is facing a £200m lawsuit brought by the administrators of collapsed café chain Patisserie Valerie, seeking damages in respect of the firm’s audits for the financial periods September 2014 to September 2017

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is consulting on plans to revise the standards for an audit firm’s responsibilities to design, implement and operate a system of quality management, in response to changes made by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB)

Online fashion retailer Boohoo has appointed PKF Littlejohn as its external auditor, replacing PwC which stepped down from the role in October

The government is to offer councils an additional £15m in response to findings of the independent review into the effectiveness of local audit carried out by Sir Tony Redmond earlier this year, to fund a suite of improvements in transparency and accountability

In a round-up of the biggest audit stories of the year, we look at all the non-coronavirus news, including audit wins and losses, plans to break up Big Four audit firms, fines, reprimands, standard revisions, audit quality inspections and an exclusive interview with FRC boss Sir Jon Thompson

The Financial Reporting Council has undertaken new analysis of its audit quality inspection results after discovering 80% of audits required improvement, effective challenging was a key component