Professional Bodies Supervision (overview)
Published: 25 September 2023
1 minute read
Introduction
The Professional Bodies Supervision team (formerly Professional Oversight Team, or 'POT') fulfils the following statutory responsibilities for the FRC:
- Ensures that the FRC, as Competent Authority, may be satisfied that each Recognised Supervisory Body (‘RSB’) has the necessary arrangements in place to meet the requirements of the Delegation Agreement and should continue to be recognised as an RSB for the purpose of statutory audit;
- Independent oversight of the audit qualification awarded by the Recognised Qualifying Bodies (‘RQBs’) for the purpose of statutory audit;
- Independent supervision of Auditors General in respect of the exercise of their function as statutory auditors;
- Recognition of RSBs and RQBs for local audit purposes under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014; and
- The regulation of auditors ("third country auditors") of companies outside the UK that have issued securities admitted to trading on UK regulated markets.
Reports to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
We report annually to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on the findings from this work.
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
By agreement with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), the FRC exercises independent oversight of the regulation by the IFoA of its members. The FRC's oversight role in actuarial regulation is operated by POT.
Chartered accountancy bodies
By agreement with the chartered accountancy bodies, the Professional Bodies Supervision team exercises independent oversight of the regulation of the accountancy profession.
Professional Qualifications Act 2022
Section 8 of the Professional Qualifications Act became effective on 28 October 2022.
Section 8 of the Professional Qualifications Act requires regulators of regulated professions to make public on their websites easily accessible information on qualification routes and practising requirements for those professions. The Department for Business and Trade has identified statutory audit and local public audit as regulated professions.
The Department for Business and Trade has identified that the FRC, whilst not a regulator of regulated qualifications, has oversight of the RQBs and RSBs in respect of statutory audit and local public audit as regulated professions. Whilst there is, therefore, no requirement for the FRC to include the information required by section 8 of the Professional Qualifications Act on its website, we include below links to that information on RQB and RSB websites.