BEIS White Paper: Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published the government's response to last year's White Paper ‘Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance’.
The White Paper set out the Government's proposals to respond to over 150 recommendations arising from independent reviews carried out by Sir John Kingman ('Independent Review of the Financial Reporting Council'), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ('Statutory audit market services study') and Sir Donald Brydon ('The quality and effectiveness of audit: Independent review') (all links to BEIS website). The proposed reforms in the paper set out how the Government planned to address the findings of each review and included a number of new measures in relation to directors, auditors and audit firms, the audit regulator and shareholders.
The government's response summarises the feedback that BEIS received from stakeholders on the White Paper and sets out the measures it intends to progress with.
The most significant proposals covered in the government's response are:
- Proposals in relation to the responsibilities of, and reporting by directors
- Capital maintenance
- Definition of public interest entity
- Directors’ obligations in relation to fraud
- Exploring options for attestations on internal controls
- New regulatory regime for directors
- Options for assurance on areas such as climate, Alternative Performance Measures (APMs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Payment practices
- Publication of principal risks & audit plan for engagement with shareholders
- Supervision of corporate reporting
- The Resilience Statement
- Proposals impacting the work of audit committees