Mr. Tim Bush:

The UK House of Commons supports that view. That recommendation is being put into regulations for consultation by the Competition and Markets Authority. Most people who have an investment interest in a company would support the separation of the two functions so that auditors go back to what they should be doing, which is auditing for the shareholder, creditor and public interest.

Consulting is something different. The future of audit inquiry is looking at it also because there is a school of thought that people do not find auditing an interesting career and they hear the message that the consulting side of a firm is more interesting and propping up the audit side. It is a relatively recent phenomenon to have that consultancy mindset and has corresponded with what is quite clearly a decline in standards in audits of company accounts. It has reached proportions where companies such as Carillion disappear overnight, even though the warning signs were there up to eight years ago.