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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the new Audit Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) will take to work in partnership with investors, boards, auditors and other regulators to develop a world-class system of corporate governance in practice.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has since December 2019 been undertaking a transformation programme to prepare for its transition to the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA). As part of this, the FRC has established a dedicated stakeholder engagement team to enable more extensive engagement and dialogue with investors, boards, auditors and other stakeholders on how the UK’s corporate governance and stewardship frameworks can continue to improve and embed good practice. Further details of this expanded outreach programme can be found in section 6 of the regulator’s latest Annual Report published in July 2021:

https://www.frc.org.uk/getattachment/985d9c2a-8a6d-4c8b-8172-06858edfabab/FRC-Annual-Report-and-Accounts-2020-21.pdf.

The new ARGA will take forward this dialogue and partnership working in line with new statutory objectives, as set out in the Government’s White Paper on ‘Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance’: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/restoring-trust-in-audit-and-corporate-governance-proposals-on-reforms.