Monitoring Group Provides Feedback Received from Paper Suggesting Reforms to Global Standard-setting Model

On May 31, the Monitoring Group, comprised of a number of international regulatory bodies, published a summary of feedback based on comments received from 179 responders to Strengthening the Governance and Oversight of the International Audit-Related Standard-Setting Boards in the Public Interest. According to its summary the following received strong support across all stakeholder groups (e.g. national standard-setters, professional organizations, financial statement users, regulators, audit firms, and academics): 

  • need for strong accountability and transparency
  • importance of maintaining a principles-based approach to standards
  • diversification of the standard-setting board (multi-stakeholder approach)
  • ethics standard-setting for auditors and professional accountants by a single board (as today)
  • expansion of the boards' technical staff
  • broadening of the funding base

Also, many stakeholder groups supported: 

  • more timely standard-setting (while maintaining high quality)
  • more strategic approach by standard-setting boards
  • changes to the nomination process
  • exploring the role and membership of the Consultative Advisory Group, which is not clearly understood by stakeholders
  • remuneration for standard-setting board members

Views were "diverse" on the following matters: 

  • the need for changing the model (stakeholders did not believe the Monitoring Group stated its rationale clearly enough)
  • combining the auditing and ethics standard-setting boards into a single board
  • composition of the boards (balance of stakeholders)
  • whether standards should be scaled for smaller entities

The Monitoring Group will continue to gather stakeholder feedback via public roundtables and other outreach before publishing its reform recommendations.