The firm has continued to respond positively to and made good progress on actions to address our previous findings in relation to its audit execution and firm-wide procedures, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said. ‘This year, it is pleasing that 100% of the audits inspected were assessed as good or limited improvements required. This is the second year that there has been an improvement in the number of audits requiring no more than limited improvements,’ the FRC said.

Given the small sample size (which has reduced to five, to reflect the fall in the number of audits within the scope of the FRC) as well as the firm’s approach of de-risking its audit portfolio, this may not be a trend across its whole portfolio, warned the regulator. Nevertheless, the firm’s progress is ‘very encouraging’.

The F