PSAA is specified as an appointed person under the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 and regulation 3 of the Local Audit (Appointing Person) Regulations 2015. The Terms of Appointment are issued in accordance with its contracts with firms to provide audit services to opted-in bodies.
The Terms of Appointment set out additional requirements that auditors must comply with, in addition to those set out in the Code of Audit Practice (the Code) issued by the National Audit Office (NAO) and in legislation, and cover matters of practice and procedure which are of a recurring nature. Each year, we monitor auditors’ compliance with the Terms of Appointment. The key aspects of compliance monitored are:
- the delivery of audit outputs against target dates;
- consideration and, if appropriate, approval of auditors’ requests for variations to the scale audit fee where they have had to carry out more (or less) work than expected; and
- consideration of, and where we are satisfied that the work does not create a threat to the auditor’s independence, approval of auditors’ requests to provide non-audit services to audited bodies.
The Terms of Appointment are not year-specific and are updated regularly as changes are required.