EY Audit Quality Results Improve Third Year Running

Ernst & Young Australia (EY Australia) has announced the results from ASIC’s inspections of EY audits for FY21.

The percentage of areas where it was found that EY did not obtain reasonable assurance that financial reports were free of mis-statement reduced from 14 per cent in 2020 to just 7 per cent, continuing our trend of improvement and reflecting our continued investment in sustainable audit quality improvement initiatives.

Glenn Carmody, EY Oceania Assurance Leader said:

“We are very pleased with the recently announced results from ASIC’s inspections of EY audits for FY21, continuing the downward trend since 2019. 

“This has been a remarkable achievement and we are extremely grateful for the hard-work and resilience of our audit teams who remained laser focused on quality, despite the very difficult circumstances under which audits needed to be performed during the COVID pandemic in FY21.  

“We also note the improvement across the six largest accounting firms overall, during this difficult period for auditors, indicating the importance our industry places on executing quality audits that are fundamental to the operation of our capital markets.”

EY CEO and Managing Partner, David Larocca said:

“We could not be more delighted with the results, and it is testament to the great work of our audit teams, from the partners right through to our fabulous assurance grads. The teams had to pivot to deliver audits completely remotely, something that had never happened before and were assisted in doing this seamlessly by EY’s global investment in industry leading technology and data analytic tools.

“Our partners and senior leaders are held accountable for quality and it is the most important component we use when evaluating partner performance.

“The importance of quality audits to the successful operation of capital markets cannot be understated, particularly as the world economies recover and re-boot in the post pandemic world.”