Remaking audit: A plan for culture change and regulatory reform

Article

The audit industry is often seen as a not very exciting area. Auditors, sometimes referred to as ‘bean counters’, are seen as simply double-checking numbers with little room for judgement. As we showed in our last report, this view is entirely inaccurate.

Auditors should fulfil the role of trusted referees who speak up, challenge, and conduct reliable detective work on behalf of society, checking whether businesses report an informative picture about their operations. If the audit sector does its job well, its outputs should be all but boring. However, the sector is a long way away from that. In this report we highlight how to get there.

In our first report, we showed the need for profound reform in the audit industry. In this paper, we flesh out how we think these areas should be tackled, with a particular emphasis on the need for policy changes that trigger culture change in audit firms.

While there have been a number of proposals in the other five of the areas highlighted above (which we draw on), recommendations around culture change tend to be particularly under-developed. We aim to fill this gap with our proposals.

Related items

  1. The great enabler: transport’s role in tackling environmental crises and delivering progressive change

    In this special issue of IPPR Progressive Review we bring together leading political, academic and civil society thinkers to consider transport in modern Britain and its role in delivering a healthier, greener, more prosperous and…

  2. The shape of devolution

    How do we create transparent, fair and practical footprints for local power across England?
  3. Wind turbines near the Scottish borders on a sunny day

    Everything everywhere, all at once: The need for a four nations approach to accelerate wind deployment in the UK

    The UK is a world leader in wind deployment and has some of the most ambitious future wind capacity targets in the world, aiming for clean power by 2030.