Only £9.5m in final fines, discounted from an original £14.5m, were handed out by the audit regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), in 2024-25, down by more than two thirds on previous year’s £48.2m, discounted to £33.1m. At the same time, only 11 financial sanctions were imposed on firms and audit partners, compared to 17 in 2023-24.

The confirmation of the huge drop in sanctions in the last year came a day after the FRC announced a major investigation into Deloitte over seven years of audits for FTSE 100 listed mining giant Glencore.