The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) found that Mazar’s audit quality plan (AQP) needs to be ‘urgently’ and ‘significantly’ updated as the number of audits requiring improvements by Mazars last year was ‘unacceptable’

In this year’s audit quality inspection reports, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) flagged a number of areas of concern, stating that Deloitte auditors needed to improve the evaluation and challenge of management’s key assumptions of impairment assessments of goodwill and other assets

Nearly a third of audits reviewed in the annual Financial Reporting Council (FRC) audit quality inspections have been rated as requiring improvement

Accountancy firm BDO described as ‘unacceptable’ by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) for the continuing decline in the number of audits requiring no more than ‘limited improvements’ in the last year

PwC had a year-on-year improvement in their overall inspection results, with around 80% or more of audits requiring no more than limited improvements, although this still fell short of the audit regulator’s expectations 

Big Four firm KPMG has been heavily criticised for the quality of its banking audits by inspectors from the audit watchdog, which is calling for urgent improvements

Competition is growing slightly for audit business as challenger audit firms have grown their share of FTSE 250 audits, up from 4.8% to 7.6%, but fees have increased

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has appointed Sarah Rapson as executive director, supervision, with responsibility for audit standards and monitoring 

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has issued revised quality management standards for an audit firm’s responsibilities to design, implement and operate a system of quality management

Managed shared audit has come under fire in responses to the government’s consultation on audit reform, with organisations warning that it is unlikely to address the current problems and risks related to audit failures

As the consultation on the future of audit closes, Peter Manser, head of audit and assurance at Kreston Reeves LLP, argues that managed shared audit needs careful consideration but could open up much-needed competition among audit firms

Chair of the anti-corruption and responsible tax committee, Dame Margaret Hodge has called on the government to introduce legislation that gives more transparency to public contracts awarded to private companies