The horizon widens and auditors face new watershed

Article Abstract:

Accepted ideas about the auditor's function have been broadened considerably due to recent events and legislative changes. Audit responsibility is no longer restricted to an expression of opinion regarding historic accounts; the Financial Services Act 1986 requires all businesses providing financial services are required to appoint auditors, and the audit function has been extended to give greater protection to investors. In the future, the scope of audits could include four levels of responsibility: reporting on the stewardship of the firm's accounts; ensuring that all creative accounting interpretations conform to SSAP requirements; reporting mismanagement; and monitoring a company's finances in areas such as capital adequacy, accounting and data security controls.

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Independence: a new perception needed

Article Abstract:

Independence is an essential factor of auditor effectiveness, but many of the Department of Trade and Industry's suggestions for strengthening auditors' independence are misguided. What is needed on the part of both the government and the accounting profession, if self-regulation is to survive, is a reappraisal of the concept of independence. Accountants, for their part, cannot blame their failure to perform stringent audits on the fact that laws and business conditions in the UK have changed.

United Kingdom. Department of Trade and Industry

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Law reform: It's in need of reform

Article Abstract:

The low-priority Company Law Reform Bill was kept pending for so long that many of its proposed reforms are themselves in need of reform, while some of them are cut adrift from the principles that spawned them back in 1998. Some key reforms are lost in transit such as the one that sought to codify the auditors' liability to third parties, thus leaving this important issue subject to the interpretative vagaries of the court, while the liability capping agreement has become more confusing.

United Kingdom, Legal issues & crime, Government regulation (cont), Government regulation, Management dynamics, Legal/Government Regulation, Liabilities (Accounting), Practice, Accounting, Accounting law

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