Audit Quality Report 2024

Maintaining high standards of audit quality

I set out below the annual report I am required to provide to the Auditor General and the Wales Audit Office Board as the Executive Director of Corporate Services, and a member of our Audit Quality Committee, on:

• the effectiveness of our audit quality arrangements; and
• the adequacy of resources committed to those arrangements.

Audit quality is, and must remain, at the core of everything we want to achieve as Audit Wales. It is therefore essential that we maintain high standards of audit quality if we are to preserve and enhance our position as an authoritative, trusted, and independent voice.

I was therefore delighted to support and contribute to our all-staff, forward-looking conference in April this year, entitled ‘Setting the Stage for our Future’ and to witness at the conference the exceptional enthusiasm and commitment of our staff.

Effectiveness of arrangements

I believe that we have well-established arrangements in place to monitor the quality of our audit work, and that we are continually working to strengthen those arrangements. We also continue to work with the Quality Assurance Department (QAD) of Institue of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW) to provide us with necessary independent assurance over the quality of our audit work.

During the year, I observed that we have continued to embed out new audit approaches to support the rigour and efficiency of our audit work, which have been supported by an ongoing programme of training and technical implementation guidance. I have also noted further progress being made in implementing our system of quality management as we strive to embed the audit quality management standard (ISQM 1) into our ‘business as usual’ arrangements.

I look forward to continuing to monitor these and other developments through the Audit Quality Committee.

Adequacy of resources

I outlined in our Audit Quality Reports 2022 and 2023, that I was pleased to see the good progress that was being made across a range of major initiatives due to our investment in audit quality.

However the pace of change and level of regulatory change and expectations places demands on our support arrangements with increasing calls for ongoing investment. I believe that we recognise these pressures and are seeking to respond to these demands where this is necessary.

Overall, while there are ongoing challenges, I believe that we are well-placed to continue to make progress. I will, however, continue to monitor, challenge and report as necessary, on the adequacy of our evolving arrangements and of the resources committed to support those arrangements.

Kevin Thomas, Executive Director for Corporate Services