AQRB: Objectives
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Transparent, independent monitoring aiming to enhance audit quality
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- Independence: AQRB (the Audit Quality Review Board) is a ‘not for profit’ company established within the auditing profession to enhance the quality of audits. AQRB is a company limited by guarantee with St James Ethics Centre as the inaugural Member (shareholder). Perpetual Ltd is the trustee and administrator of AQRB funds. The Board of AQRB comprises up to ten eminent persons with a range of legal, regulatory, business and auditing experience.
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- Monitoring: AQRB will monitor the quality assurance processes by which participating audit firms seek to ensure their compliance with independence and audit quality related professional statements and legal obligations particularly as they affect financial statement audits of publicly listed entities in Australia. This work aims to add to and complement that of regulators and professional bodies. While participation is voluntary, the major auditing firms have all agreed to be involved from the outset and to pay a contribution to the cost of AQRB operations.
- Transparency: The work of AQRB will be visible to the public in three main ways:
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 | | Each participating firm will file a quality control report outlining how they comply with the relevant independence and quality standards. These reports will be public.
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| | | AQRB will carry out a review of firms that have agreed to be monitored by AQRB and it will publish a summary report of each such review. A more detailed report that may contain commercially sensitive material or detailed comments will be made to the monitored firm but that will not be public.
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| | | An annual report will be published by AQRB commenting on the overall review process.
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