The National Audit Office (NAO) warns that the current funding model for the NHS is not sustainable, despite the government’s pledge of an additional £20.5bn cash boost, because of the existence of substantial deficits in some parts of the system and the continued failure to hit performance targets

Both academics and business experts raised concerns of ‘unintended consequences’ of audit reforms to the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee, with broad disagreement over whether the changes should be led by government or business, reports James Bunney

The government needs to improve its oversight of the governance system to help local authorities cope with increasing financial and demand pressures, with a quarter of chief finance officers (CFO) from councils calling for external auditors to focus on value for money, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO)

The number of NHS and local government bodies with significant weaknesses in their arrangements for delivering value for money is ‘unacceptably’ high, but bodies are failing to take action on auditors’ warnings, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO)

In this month’s round-up of audit news, the Competition and Markets Authority releases its initial findings into the lack of competition in the listed audit market with the Big Four under fire, while the Kingman review questions to competency of the audit regulator, while Patisserie Valerie drops Grant Thornton in auditor switch to RSM

US firm Crowe has agreed to pay a penalty of $1.5m (£1.18m), after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) identified significant failures in audits of Corporate Resource Services, which went bankrupt in 2015 after the discovery of $100m in unpaid federal payroll tax liabilities

Increasing focus on the quality of audit in the UK means that the Big Four audit firms are under severe pressure with threats of breakup and radical reform. In our exclusive annual FTSE 100 Big Four Alumni survey, Philip Smith analyses the inextricable link between UK boards and the top audit firms

The Competition and Markets Authority’s initial report on reforming the UK audit market ignores auditor independence and risks putting the cart before the horse, argues Peter Swabey, policy and research director at ICSA: The Governance Institute

David Grunberg, founding partner of Grunberg & Co, mulls over the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) review of the audit market and suggests that a change of heart over consultancy might be needed from the Big Four

Donald Brydon, outgoing chair of the London Stock Exchange Group and chair of Sage Group has been appointed to lead a new independent review of the quality and effectiveness of the UK audit market, in the wake of the Kingman review and the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA’s) interim findings, following a nine-month search for an independent chair

A five-week consultation has been launched on the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) proposals to address the lack of competition in the audit market with reforms including the introduction of joint audits for listed companies, with at least one firm being non-Big Four, and closer scrutiny of auditor appointments, reports Amy Austin

In a scathing review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Sir John Kingman has called for the standard setter and audit regulator to be closed in its present form with immediate replacement by a new oversight authority with regulatory powers set in statute

Launching the Wates corporate governance code for large private companies, James Wates praised the work done but admitted that the future involvement of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) was overshadowed by the impending publication of the Kingman review into the regulator

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has announced the withdrawal of two practice notes, one relating to attendance at stocktaking and the other to the audit of credit unions in the UK

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has launched a consultation to assess the effectiveness of the client asset audit (CASS) standard, which was introduced in 2015 to provide a principles-based framework to strengthen audit quality in response to some high profile failures