Continue reading
How do you know if your audit committee is effective?
Audit Committees are playing an increasingly critical corporate governance role in terms of their leadership on financial reporting, internal controls, risk management and the internal and external audit functions.
Following on from the recent scandals at companies like Carillion, Patisserie Valerie and Metro Bank, there is an increasing public focus on audit committees and their oversight of the preparation and audit of financial statements. There is also a wider movement involving the CMA, the recommendations of the Kingman Review, and the Brydon review covering audit committee scrutiny, audit sector reform and the creation of a new independent regulator, the Audit, Reporting & Governance Authority (ARGA) to implement a stronger enforcement regime.
With this backdrop, at a round table event held at ICAEW in March 2019, a group of Audit Committee members and advisers focused on a number of key themes which can help ensure a more effective Audit Committee (AC). These included culture, self-evaluation, training, experience and networking.