What businesses can learn from the Brydon Review

The practice of financial auditing has been under intense scrutiny over the last few years. Despite the introduction of mandatory firm rotation in 2012, concerns remain over the quality and effectiveness of audit.

Following a series of high-profile corporate failures, a number of reviews have been commissioned, covering every aspect of auditing. The third of those, led by Sir Donald Brydon, was commissioned to examine the quality and effectiveness of the UK audit discipline and identify opportunities to improve its impact, with the result published at the end of 2019.

The review contains more than 60 recommendations, and at the time of writing it is not yet clear whether these will become legislation, or in what form. While many of these are aimed at auditors, the firms that provide audit services and the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), there is still much that businesses and those referred to as audit users can and should learn from the recommendations.

With this in mind, we have identified some of the key recommendations that we feel will have an impact on businesses, and how they offer potential opportunities that go far beyond the realms of financial reporting.

To provide further insight, we spoke with international Chief Audit and Risk Officer, Rania Bejjani, a Chartered Management Accountant and a Certified Internal Auditor, who has led the modernisation of global Audit & Risk teams across multiple industries. Rania also gave us five steps for how businesses could start incorporating the Brydon Review recommendations into their own practices.

You can access the full guide here.