Internal Audit & Controls

In this article, Norman Marks dives into the evolving concept of continuous assurance, challenging traditional notions of continuous auditing and urging internal auditors to focus less on reviewing the past and more on providing real-time confidence in the future. Drawing on his own experiences as a former Chief Audit Executive and early adopter of continuous auditing techniques, Marks explores how true assurance comes from understanding risk as it changes, engaging with management regularly, and providing insight that helps organizations anticipate, not just detect, issues.

In my recent post, I suggested that risk management and internal audit would better serve management, boards, and stakeholders if they operated from a shared purpose. The idea is straightforward: both functions should focus on ensuring leadership receives reliable, decision-useful information about the uncertainties that affect the organization’s mission critical objectives. If they did that consistently, organizations would make better decisions and achieve better outcomes.

The Financial Reporting Council has issued sanctions against BDO and two former audit engagement partners after uncovering systemic failures that allowed a Senior Manager at the firm to carry out dishonest conduct on numerous audits over several years.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published a new report setting out what’s working, and what isn’t, across the audits of the UK’s twelve largest firms. Drawing from inspections carried out over the 2023/24 and 2024/25 cycles, the regulator’s Key Findings and Good Practice Report shines a light on both the progress being made and the persistent gaps that continue to shape the state of audit quality in the UK.

Australia’s corporate watchdog has delivered a stern warning to the audit sector after uncovering what it called “concerning” failures in compliance with auditor independence obligations.

The UK’s audit watchdog has sanctioned KPMG and one of its senior partners, Anthony Sykes, for serious lapses in their 2022 audit of online retailer N Brown Group.

The UK’s audit watchdog has kicked off an ambitious set of consultations aimed at shoring up trust in financial reporting, with proposals that touch fraud detection, going concern judgments, auditor reporting, and enforcement powers.