Trust in audit on the rise: ICAEW
Nov 18, 2025
The latest CPIA Audit Trust Index shows that Finance Directors, Audit Committee Chairs and equity investors are more satisfied overall with audit quality and value in 2025. Communication, clarity and understanding of the audit process are areas to work on.
Satisfaction in audit quality, value and clarity has increased from 2024 to 2025, according to the latest Audit Trust Index from the Centre for Public Interest Audit (CPIA).
Auditors met a 100% satisfaction rate among Finance Directors, Audit Committee Chairs and equity investors, with similarly high scores in other areas. Overall, audits scored very highly for the three stakeholder groups:
Finance Directors: audit value 98%, audit quality 97%.
Equity investors: audit value 100%, quality 99%
Audit Committee Chairs: audit value 96%, quality 97%
This marks a significant improvement on 2024, where the various stakeholders scored audit value and quality in the 80s, with the highest score being 86%.
Responses to fraud risk, financial distress and going concern have seen particular improvement. For example, Audit Committee Chairs scored audit quality around financial distress and going concern as 68 in 2024. That increased to 96 in 2025.
These improvements reflect the results of the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) Audit Quality Review, which found continuous improvement among top tier audit firms. The voluntary operational separation of audit and consulting practices within the four largest audit firms was also concluded in 2024, which may be reflected in audit quality in 2025.
International Standard on Quality Management (ISQM) (UK) 1 adoption may also have had an impact, with firms following that framework and investing in Systems of Quality Management (SOQMs) in response.
The Audit Firm Governance Code (revised 2022) may also have played a part, with its formalisation of the independent non-executive role and focus on strengthening ethical governance and responsibilities.
Areas for improvement
The lowest satisfaction rates reported by Finance Directors and Audit Committee Chairs were for the practical usefulness of audit findings. Almost a quarter (23%) of Finance Directors were either neutral or dissatisfied with this element of audit, while 15% of Audit Committee Chairs felt the same.
Fortuitously, the UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is currently consulting on several International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) UK connected with auditor’s reports – and so there is an opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders to input into revisions to those standards. ICAEW’s Audit and Assurance Faculty will be responding.
The FRC is proposing amendments to key standards, ISA (UK) 700 "Forming an opinion and reporting on financial statements", ISA (UK) 701 on Key Audit Matters (KAMs), and ISA (UK) 720 on Other Information.
Concurrently, an Audit and Assurance Faculty project group is looking at various aspects of auditors’ reports, as it dovetails with the FRC’s projects. These include looking at aspects of understandability, clarity with respect to “red flags”, and how other professions report on findings akin to graduated findings.
All stakeholders also flagged the increasing regulatory complexity around audit and the lack of clarity around the role of the auditor. All stakeholders wanted to see more choice in the market, and more clarity around auditor and director responsibilities. Clarity on the provision of non-audit services was also high on the priority list for all stakeholders. There was less interest in the establishment of the Corporate Reporting Authority, with just 5% of Finance Directors, 10% of investors and 23% of Audit Committee Chairs citing it as a regulatory priority.
Dean Beale, Executive Director of the CPIA, said that while trust and confidence is rising, people still want clearer reporting, set out in plain language. “Proportionate reform is the best way to protect the gains we are seeing while keeping the market resilient for the UK’s largest, most economically important companies (often defined as a public interest entity, PIE),” he said. “CPIA will work with stakeholders and policymakers to turn these findings into practical next steps.”
Baroness Margaret Ford, Chair of the CPIA, added: “The profession has made tangible progress. Stakeholders are telling us that audits are higher quality and more valuable. The task now is to embed that progress: maintain independence and scepticism and ensure reforms are targeted and proportionate so the market remains resilient and competitive.”
[ICAEW Insights]
