UK Audit Reform Facing Five-Year Delay, Regulator Says

Long-awaited UK audit reform might not arrive before 2027, owing to political obstacles and a lack of civil service capacity, the head of the UK accounting watchdog said in an interview.

“There’s a problem over the civil service’s ability to do this,” Jon Thompson, CEO of the Financial Reporting Council, told Bloomberg Tax. The government audit reform proposals published in March took a year to draft, he noted, and will require that complex legislation be enacted.

Thompson, 57, previously a senior civil servant and accountant, took charge of the FRC ...