Grant Thornton UK was assessed a penalty of 40,000 pounds (U.S. $51,000) by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) for alleged procedure failures affecting the firm’s audit of a local authority’s pension fund.
The FRC reduced its penalty from £50,000 (U.S. $63,000) for cooperation and other mitigating factors, including the firm promptly addressing the identified deficiencies and demonstrating contrition, the regulator announced Monday.
The details: The relevant pension fund audit was for the financial year ended March 31, 2021. The FRC did not identify the local authority involved by name.
Regarding Grant Thornton’s work, the regulator said it found “two uncorrected material errors which appeared in the version of the pension fund’s audited financial statements that was included in the local authority’s annual report (these errors did not appear in the pension fund’s own financial statements) and insufficient audit evidence obtained that the value of investments was materially accurate.”
The FRC said it brought the action to ensure Grant Thornton UK’s local audit functions are undertaken, supervised, and managed effectively.
Firm response: “We note the findings of the regulator’s investigation, with which we have cooperated throughout, and regret the errors identified,” said a spokesperson for Grant Thornton UK in an emailed statement. “As a leading provider of audit and related assurance services to the public sector, we remain committed to high-quality work and have taken steps to further improve this.”
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