FRC Review of Auditing Standards – They’re Looking At The Wrong Things

The Financial Report Council (FRC) have recently published a “Post Implementation Review: 2016 Ethical and Auditing Standards”. It concentrates on the changes made in 2016 to improve the independence of auditors but will that solve the lack of trust in financial accounts and audits thereof? I doubt it.

This is what I said in response to some of their questions (answers in red):

1. Do the current ethical and auditing standards drive the auditor to deliver work that meets the expectations of users within the current scope of an audit? If there are expectations that are not being addressed, please state those along with your proposals as to how they can be addressed.

   The expectations of users are still not being met because simply introducing ethical rules to be followed by auditors does not tackle the basic problem that many audits do not identify false or misleading financial accounts.

2. Are there further steps that the FRC should consider as part of this review to ensure the delivery of high-quality audit? If so, please state what they are and why.

   The FRC needs to spend effort to identify why fraudulent accounts can still be produced by companies and not be identified as such by auditors. In other words, they need to look at what rules or procedures could be put in place to identify such failings as false balance sheets (e.g. reported cash not being available or undisclosed overdrafts as in Globo and Patisserie), incorrect revenue recognition (Quindell et al), excessive risks being taken and poor internal controls (Conviviality, banks in 2008, etc), and other aspects of companies that cause them to fail.

3. Do you believe the current restrictions on non-audit services are sufficient to address threats to independence, objectivity, integrity and audit quality, and address stakeholder expectations? If not, please explain why, by providing examples where audit quality has been compromised as a result of non-audit services being provided by the auditor.

   They do very little to affect the objectivity, integrity and audit quality or to address stakeholder expectations.

4. Is the work required of an auditor on an entity’s compliance with laws and regulations, and those procedures to identify irregularity, including fraud, sufficient to meet the needs and legitimate expectations of users? If not, what additional work would you require and why?

   A lot more work would be required to identify fraud and meet the expectations of users of financial statements. What that work might be can only come out of an examination of past audit failings.

5. Should the FRC take further steps to increase the value of extended auditor reporting to users of financial statements? If you agree, what material would you like to see included in auditor’s reports?

   It’s not a case of more extended auditor reporting being required – more information will just cloud the picture. We just need to have more confidence in the accounts as reported.

6. to assess whether management’s use of the going concern basis of accounting as required by IFRS or UK GAAP is appropriate. How could auditors make their assessment of greater value to users of financial statements? Please set out what steps you believe should be required to better underpin confidence in audit and audited financial statements.

   The “going concern” requirement is clearly inadequate as so many companies pass the current standard and yet go into administration or have to be bailed out before the next year end. There should not be a single “black/white” comment on the financial health of a company, but a range of reported measures. One problem at present is that both auditors and companies are desperate to avoid “qualified” accounts with the undesirable consequence that minor issues (which might point to major problems) are not reported.

There was a very interesting letter in today’s Financial Times on this subject. It was from Rodger Hughes of The Family Building Society. He said that the key driver of audit quality is the ability and attitude of audit partners and managers, but he suggested that increased compliance regulations and more auditor insecurity might have made matters worse. He concludes by saying “What is lacking and urgently needed is an authoritative study of audit failures and the underlying causes”. I wholeheartedly agree with that comment as it seems the FRC has been focussed on other than the key issues.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )