EY will reduce the size of its executive committee from 13 to eight members, and will no longer have a chief operating officer.

The 10 members of the EY LLP board have overall control of the business and take all the critical management decisions; the executive committee plays a secondary role in terms of running the firm.

In defence of the restructure, EY said the reduction in the size of the executive would allow senior members of the partnership to spend more time on client business.