Johnston Carmichael, Scotland’s largest independent accountancy firm, has opened a Dundee office as part of a strategic expansion of its operations

Big Four firm Deloitte has strengthened its specialist services with the acquisition of ClearViewIP, a global intellectual property (IP) consulting and transaction advisory business, as well as the UK-based HR and reward specialist Stitch Communications

In a bid to stave off demands for the break-up of Big Four audit firms, PwC plans to spend £30m a year on a significant transformation of its audit business, with a raft of measures designed to address growing concerns from regulators, but the firm will not hive off its audit business

The partner at the centre of accusations of alleged bullying against team members at KPMG has stepped down as investigations continue at the Big Four firm

In this week’s accountancy career moves, partner promotions at Kreston Reeves as long-serving chairman retires, Johnston Carmichael and HW Fisher, CFO for Crunch, and PKF Francis Clark hires SDLT tax specialist

Commerce and industry accounting professionals are considering their next moves carefully, sacrificing salary for progression, while demand for interim professionals continues. Helen Firth, C&I manager at Morgan McKinley analyses the latest recruitment trends

While the majority of businesses use a tax agent to help deal with tax compliance, a third of these agents are unregulated and operate outside the self regulated tax services market, while they are not members of professional bodies which comply with accepted professional codes of conduct

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has confirmed that Mike Suffield, acting executive director of audit and actuarial regulation is to step down after a year in post, with a central banking regulator seconded to head up audit firm monitoring and supervision

The Serious Fraud Office is working on clarifying the rules on reporting fraud and corruption in an effort to encourage more companies to come forward when they unearth wrongdoing. Alistair Graham, partner, and Paul Whitfield-Jones, senior associate, of Mayer Brown International LLP, consider the legal implications over privileged material

In this week’s accountancy career moves, partner promotions and hires at Kingston Smith and FRP Advisory, hires at Kreston Reeves, Gabelle and Ascendis, and board appointments at UKGI and ESMA

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is to increase its budget significantly in 2019/20 to £37.8m and plans to hire additional staff to improve its oversight and monitoring of audit firms, and support its transition to a new regulatory body

KPMG and PwC are the UK's biggest recruiters of cyber security experts, with EY and Deloitte close behind, making the Big Four the country’s top four cyber employers

Patrick Day, associate director at Portfolio Payroll, explains the key legislative changes for employers and employees, highlighting compliance issues from the requirement for payslips for all workers to use of non-disclosure agreements and the increase in auto enrolment pension contributions

The UK has overtaken Japan as the most expensive location to send expatriates, despite salaries remaining static, because of increases in tax and essential costs, including housing

Economic and political pessimism among 17-36 year-olds is widespread, and businesses need to do more to keep the younger generation engaged with the workplace as only half plan to stay with employers for maximum two years, Deloitte research has found