Auditor appointments: ShareSoc+UKSA write to Minister Greg Clark

Today 18 Feb 2019, ShareSoc & UKSA have written to The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We made three key points:

  1. Appointment of auditors by a third party with the relevant skills and expertise would, once and for all, break the current link of excessive dependency between auditors and those they audit.
  2. If, on a trial basis, the Regulator started by managing the appointment of auditors for FTSE 100 companies this would mean an average of ten appointments a year. This should not be a particularly onerous workload for a team of experts. It is low-risk and requires relatively little investment.
  3. Appointment of auditors by a third party was proposed by Sir John Kingman in his December report, but following lobbying by the Investment Association, fund managers and audit firms, Sir John has changed his mind. We suggest Minister Greg Clark evaluates this issue on its merits and is not influenced by lobbying groups, who are lobbying for their own interests and not for the benefit of UK society as a whole.

The full text of the letter is here Auditor Appointment letter The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP

Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc

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