PIOB overseeing international audit, ethics and education standards for the accounting profession

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In 2010, the Monitoring Group completed the first five-year review of the progress of the 2003 IFAC reform, which included input from the PIOB’s own self-assessment report. The final MG report found that virtually all of the changes called for by the reforms had been implemented, though it acknowledged that the process of improvement is continuous (see the PIOB’s Sixth Public Report, chapter four).

The PIOB’s self-assessment exercise concluded that the reforms implemented since 2005 had produced improvements to the governance of the IFAC and its standards-setting bodies, and to the process by which standards are set and implemented. It also underscored the degree to which the public interest had become embedded throughout the processes of standard-setting that the PIOB oversees. These improvements were achieved through the development and refinement of two of the essential elements of reform: the continuation of the IFAC's responsibility for assembling teams of highly qualified professionals to develop auditing, education and ethics standards, and the management of the potential conflict between professional and public interests through the oversight of the PIOB.

Looking forward, the PIOB understands the need to continue to adapt its system of oversight to an environment that is constantly developing; to adapt its oversight approach to the particular circumstances of each of the entities that it oversees.

With the completion of the Clarity project and the publication of the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, the International Audit and Assurance Standards Board and the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants have each embarked on initiatives that will promote the public interest in new and different ways and will involve a broader range of stakeholders. The Education Standards Board (IAESB) is engaged in an ambitious cycle of revision of the eight extant education standards. The Compliance Advisory Panel has begun a review of the Statements of Membership Obligations.

Standard setters and the PIOB will need to adapt to a widening scope of audits that goes beyond what is strictly understood today as a financial audit: The IFAC has reported that it supports initiatives led by the International Integrated Reporting Committee to create a globally accepted framework for integrated reporting, designed to bring together financial, environmental, social and governance information in a clear, concise, consistent and comparable format.