“All of Britain’s leading accounting firms have failed to hit quality targets set by their regulator for auditing company books for the second year in a row, with Grant Thornton and PwC singled out to join KPMG under tougher supervision.
The damning review from the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) will pile pressure on the government to implement a proposed sector shake-up prompted by corporate failures at builder Carillion, retailer BHS and an accounting scandal at cafe chain Patisserie Valerie.
The FRC said EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC, known as the Big Four, and BDO, Grant Thornton and Mazars from the next tier down, all failed to hit a target that 90% of audits reviewed by the regulator were good or required only limited improvements.
Only 75% of the sample of audits from among Britain’s 350 top listed companies for the year ending December 2017 met the 90% target overall as accountants failed to challenge information clients gave to them, the FRC said.
There was no overall improvement on last year’s findings when all audits reviewed failed to meet the 90% target.
“At a time when the future of the audit sector is under the microscope, the latest audit quality results are not acceptable,” said Stephen Haddrill, the FRC’s chief executive.
Radical reform of the sector was proposed last December to rebuild public trust in audit, including replacing the FRC, described by lawmakers as toothless, with a more powerful watchdog.
Haddrill and his chair Win Bischoff are being replaced. …”
East Devon Watch 