Editor's comment: ethics takes back seat in eyes of audit inspectors

The opaque world of limited liability partnerships may be set for a period of greater scrutiny with a spate of audit scandals rocking firms and a fairly dismissal level of adherence to acceptable ethical standards in the latest audit quality inspection (AQI) round, says Sara White, editor of Accountancy

The latest Financial Reporting Council (FRC) audit inspections reveal a litany of failureswhen it comes to meeting professionally acceptable ethical standards, with basic reporting of conflicts of interest simply being overlooked when an audit changes hands through to a complete failure to monitor share buybacks and external interests.

And this is nothing new; this year’s Audit Quality Inspection (AQI) season showed little improvement in the way firms deal with ethical issues, with all but one of the firms hauled up for failures to apply the revised Ethical Standard introduced by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in 2016.

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