A group of civil society organisations and institutions including Greenpeace, IPPR, Spotlight on Corruption and academics from Sheffield University, today called for urgent reform of the audit profession ahead of the publication of a government White Paper. They argued that wide-reaching changes should be implemented as soon as possible to prevent repeated audit failure and protect the interests of shareholders, staff, customers, pensioners, investors and society as a whole.
The group supports the separation of audit and consulting functions within professional service firms to reduce conflict of interest and argues that auditors should face stricter penalties, including fines and debarment from public contracts, when they fail to do their job properly. They also stress that companies’ accounts must include information on climate change and that auditors should robustly review this information.