Policy paper

Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance

This white paper sets out proposals to strengthen the UK’s framework for major companies and the way they are audited.

• From: Department for Business and Trade and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
• Published: 18 March 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Documents

Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance

Ref: ISBN 978-1-5286-2401-5, CCS0221978662 03/21, CP 382

PDF, 1.53 MB, 232 pages

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Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance

Ref: ISBN 978-1-5286-2401-5, CCS 0221978662 03/21, CP 382

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Details

This white paper sets out proposals to strengthen the UK’s framework for major companies and the way they are audited. The proposals set out how:

• companies should report on their governance and finances
• reports should be audited
• audit and the audit market should change
• these should be overseen by a new regulator

The objectives of these reforms are to:

• restore public trust in the way that the UK’s largest companies are run and scrutinised
• ensure that the UK’s most significant corporate entities are governed responsibly
• empower investors, creditors, workers, and other stakeholders by giving them access to reliable and meaningful information on a company’s performance
• keep the UK’s legal frameworks for major businesses at the forefront of international best practice

The proposals respond to recommendations made by 3 independent reviews commissioned by the government in 2018:

• Sir John Kingman’s Independent review of the Financial Reporting Council
• the Competition and Market Authority’s statutory audit market study
• Sir Donald Brydon’s independent review of the quality and effectiveness of audit

Have your say on the proposals

This consultation has concluded. It ran from 18 March 2021 to 8 July 2021.

Read the consultation outcome.

Published 18 March 2021