Skills, Competencies and the Sustainability of the Modern Audit

In 2013 ICAS and the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC) commissioned two international teams of researchers to undertake studies to investigate what mix of attributes, competencies, professional skills and qualities need to be combined in an audit team in order for it to perform a high quality public interest audit in a modern and complex global business environment.

This report is one of two independent research reports published as a result of this call for research.

This study was based on focus groups in the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, which included audit partners, audit committee members, regulators, users and academics.  Other sessions were held with trainee chartered accountants and students. Rather than identifying a list of specific skills and competencies, what emerged from the research was a bigger constellation of areas of difficulty, or “pressure points” where the challenges lie for auditors.