All the Grant Thornton audits inspected in this year’s AQI were judged to require no more than limited improvements, but the mid-tier firm will be relegated to Tier 2 in the audit inspection process as its share of listed audit business has dropped
All five audits examined in this year’s audit quality inspection (AQI) cycle required no more than limited improvements, the same as the previous year.
However, due to the limited number of listed audits conducted by Grant Thornton, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is going to relegate the firm to its Tier 2 and Tier 3 inspection report cycle to reflect the overall size and risk of the firm’s portfolio.
The FRC said: ‘The firm’s concerted effort and progress to improve audit quality continues to be very encouraging and we have seen improvements in the underlying culture, systems and processes that support audit quality. Nevertheless, to put these inspection results into perspective, there are likely to be other factors that have also contributed, such as our small sample size.
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