Friday 31 January 2014

UK: Royal Assent for the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014

The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 became law yesterday, on the granting of Royal assent: see here. A copy of the Act is available here or here (pdf). Implementation and secondary legislation will follow - it was published for consultation last year - but the legal framework is now in place to bring about the abolition of the Audit Commission and introduce, in England, the new structure for the auditing of local public bodies. This new structure has obvious parallels with the model of accountability seen under the UK Corporate Governance Code. Compare, for example, the role of the audit committee under the Code with the requirement under the 2014 Act (section 9 and Schedule 4) for relevant authorities to appoint an auditor panel to oversee and advise on the maintenance of an independent relationship between the authority and its auditor.

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