Britain to legislate to reform company auditing

Britain will toughen up supervision of accountants after high profile company collapses at builder Carillion and retailer BHS undermined trust in auditing, it said on Thursday. Setting out its new legislative agenda in a Queen's Speech on Thursday, the government said it will develop proposals on company audit and corporate reporting, including "a strong regulator" with the necessary powers to reform the sector.

"These proposals aim to improve public trust in business, following three independent reviews commissioned in 2018," it said. "It will also help workers employed by a large company in future to know how resilient it is."

Three government-backed reviews have proposed scrapping the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and creating a new, more powerful regulator, the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority or Arga. New laws are needed to implement many of the recommendations.