Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance: A look at the Government’s White Paper proposals

Introduction

On March 18, 2021 the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published the Government’s long-awaited White Paper setting out wide-ranging reforms to the UK’s audit and corporate governance framework.

Many of the proposed reforms stem from recommendations made by three independent reviews into audit and corporate reporting. These comprise the 2018 Independent Review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC Review) led by Sir John Kingman, the 2019 Review into the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit led by Sir Donald Brydon (Brydon Review), and the Market Study of Statutory Audit Services led by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA Study) in 2019. These reviews identified a number of weaknesses and a lack of accountability in certain areas which the White Paper is looking to address and this briefing considers the reforms proposed.