Taking Stock: 'Groundhog Day' nightmare of audit reports
There need to be fewer reports about audit, report about audit finds
WHAT is the point of audit? How can audit quality be defined? Can audit regain public trust?
In a mixture of introspection, navel gazing and no small degree of self-flagellation, the profession has been wrestling with these questions since the financial crash of 2008.
Studies have been issued. Reports have been published. So many in fact that TS has run out of fingers with which to keep count. So the irony was not lost on TS when it read the latest report, issued by the ICAEW and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, that there are too many reports on the issue.
To be fair, the report is right. According to the survey, the audit profession is trapped in an endless and irresolvable loop of discussion – “it’s very own Groundhog Day” – on how to regain public trust.
If this continues much longer, TS fears for the profession. One only needs to remember what happened to Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.