Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish the dates on which his Department authorised the Financial Reporting Council to pass the fines levied on auditing firms to recognised supervisory bodies.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) agreed a disciplinary scheme with the accountancy professional bodies in 2004 meeting requirements in company law for it to have in place arrangements with the recognised supervisory bodies for the purposes of disciplining auditors. The funding basis for the scheme was that the professional bodies would fund the costs of disciplinary actions and that any costs and fines ordered against the members of their bodies would be paid to those bodies.

New statutory powers for the FRC to impose fines on auditing firms were introduced in the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations 2016. The Regulations require that fines imposed under the powers must be transferred by the FRC to the Secretary of State.

The FRC continues to maintain a disciplinary scheme for non-statutory audit matters: for fines recovered under those arrangements, the fines continue to be paid over to the relevant accountancy professional bodies.