Improvements to the Corporate Reporting Review include publishing the names of companies it has reviewed. Other amendments include a streamlining of the process at the review group stage; an expectation of audit committees to report FRC regulatory intervention and; more detailed description of the process applied in reviews undertaken under the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004.

‘The board… concluded that the FRC should publish the names of its closed cases,’ the consultation document reads. ‘Such publication will only take place once each company has had the opportunity of reporting on the review in their next set of published accounts post resolution of the case.’

The FRC adds it will publish such lists ‘regularly’ from 2017, firstly in respect of 2015 reports.

Changes have also been made to reflect the transfer of more decision-making responsibility to FRC staff at the early stage of a review while retaining the involvement of members of the chair and deputy chairs of the Financial Reporting Review Panel in its more difficult and complex cases.

The FRC added it will make improvements to the ‘overall clarity of the Corporate Reporting Review enquiry process’ which it says is aimed to help stakeholders, and investors in particular, ‘understand the extent to which companies are held to account’.

The consultation runs until 4 January 2017.

The consultation document can be found here.