Meeting the needs? User views on external assurance and management commentary: Research summary report

Abstract

This short publication is intended to provide a readily accessible and non-technical summary of the first stage of a major research project supported by The Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAS) and the Scottish Accountancy Trust for Education and Research (SATER) on the future of external assurance. Those interested can obtain a much fuller account from the ICAS monograph (Fraser et al., 2010) on the research which is being published concurrently with this summary (download at: www.icas.org.uk/fraser-users). The two principal issues with which the project is concerned are: first, the provision of external assurance on management commentary and other narrative corporate reports and, second, perceptions regarding the usefulness of audit reports and the robustness of contemporary external assurance. This report covers the views of professional and private investors, as well as other users, on the issues; the second stage, presently in progress, deals with those of auditors; a possible third stage will investigate the perspectives of key corporate players, both executives and non-executives.