Festival of CPD - Audit

Welcome and Introduction

Lee Eagling, Mercia Group

This session will cover:

• An overview of the FRS 102 section 23 revisions
• Planning considerations:
  • Permanent file/background information maintenance
  • Impact on risk assessment
  • Interaction with ISA (UK) 240
• Fieldwork considerations:
  • Testing approach
  • Impact and interaction on other areas of audit work
• Financial statements and engagement completion

Refreshment break

Lee Eagling, Mercia Group

This session will cover:

• An overview of the FRS 102 section 20 revisions
• Planning considerations:
  • Permanent file/background information maintenance
  • Entity size implications
  • Impact on risk assessment
• Fieldwork considerations:
  • Expansion of testing and documentation
• Financial statements and engagement completion

Gavin Leake, Mercia Group

Many audit findings do not arise because engagement teams are unaware of auditing standards or incapable of applying them. Instead, the same underlying behaviours, commercial pressures and systemic weaknesses often continue to exist, allowing similar deficiencies to recur. Effective Root Cause Analysis (RCA) enables firms to move beyond correcting individual audit findings and instead identify and address the underlying conditions that influence audit quality.

However, meaningful RCA rarely stops at technical analysis. As firms begin asking why deficiencies occurred, they frequently uncover ethical conundrums relating to commercial pressure, familiarity, workload, leadership behaviours, organisational culture and the exercise of professional judgement. These competing pressures can subtly influence decision-making, professional scepticism and the willingness to challenge management, even where no deliberate breach of professional standards has occurred.

This practical and thought-provoking session explores how to perform structured, evidence-based Root Cause Analysis within the framework of ISQM (UK) 1, while examining the ethical and behavioural influences that often sit beneath recurring audit findings. Using realistic audit examples, delegates will explore how to distinguish symptoms from genuine root causes, identify systemic drivers of audit quality, evaluate behavioural and cultural influences and design meaningful remedial actions that support continuous improvement.

The session also considers the responsibilities of Responsible Individuals and firm leadership in creating an environment where audit quality can flourish. It explores how effective RCA informs quality risk assessment, remediation and governance, helping firms strengthen both their System of Quality Management and the ethical culture that underpins high-quality audits.

Key learning outcomes

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• understand the purpose and role of Root Cause Analysis within ISQM (UK) 1
• distinguish between symptoms, contributing factors and genuine root causes
• apply practical RCA techniques to identify the systemic drivers of recurring audit deficiencies
• recognise how behavioural, cultural and ethical influences can affect professional judgement and audit quality
• understand the ethical conundrums that effective RCA frequently uncovers, including commercial pressure, familiarity, workload and leadership influences
• design remedial actions that address underlying causes rather than simply correcting individual findings
• explain how RCA supports monitoring, quality risk assessment, governance and continuous improvement within the firm's System of Quality Management.

Lunch break

Peter Herbert, Insight Training Solutions

With the ever-increasing requirements and heightened scrutiny on the profession, it can sometimes feel impossible to carry out an audit that is both compliant and efficient. This session will concentrate on areas where a clear understanding of the requirements can help teams focus on the aspects that really matter for a particular client and ensure that time is spent in the right areas. We will also discuss the role of the FRC’s recently published Practice Note 28 in leveraging greater audit efficiency. 

Peter Herbert, Insight Training Solutions

Revisions to ISAs 240 and 570 will take effect for accounting periods beginning on or after 31 December 2026. This session will explain the changes in detail and what auditors need to do to prepare. We will also highlight current problems that firms face when applying the fraud and going concern standards and how they can be best addressed when planning and performing the audit. 

Refreshment break

Lee Eagling, Mercia Group

This session will cover:

• An overview of the technological landscape
• Use of AI and generative pre-trained transformers:
  • Risk assessment
  • Application of scepticism
  • Documentation
• Client use of technology
• Use of wider of tools:
  • Open banking
  • Deliverables management
  • PDF tools

CPD Hours: 6

Lee heads up Mercia’s A&A CPD team. In addition to lecturing he also conducts a number of audit file reviews and compliance reviews. He joined the technical team at Mercia in 2019 after spending three years in industry with Jaguar Land Rover. At Jaguar Land Rover, his primary responsibility was to deliver the Sarbanes Oxley programme while acting as a mediator for operational functions and the external auditors. Prior to that Lee was an audit manager at PwC’s East Midlands office having a diverse client base across a number of industries. Outside of work Lee is a keen golfer (albeit with questionable ability!) when he’s not chasing after his two sons. 

Gavin is Mercia’s Audit, Accounting and Assurance lecturer as well as performing file reviews and compliance reviews. Gavin spent 25 years with Deloitte (New Zealand, Croatia and Saudi Arabia) as an audit partner specialising in banking and financial institutions, telcos, manufacturing and retail.

He was the Executive Adviser to the CEO of one of the larger Banks in Saudi Arabia. Gavin’s areas of expertise are practice management, financial reporting, auditing (internal and external), corporate governance and strategic planning and execution.

Gavin was also an online instructor with the University of Liverpool in the online MBA programmes.

Peter qualified as a Chartered Accountant with an international accountancy firm before working in industry. He has over 20 years of training experience. He writes and presents technical updates for firms of accountants and qualified accountants of private and listed companies. Peter specialises in financial reporting, auditing and practice regulation. Peter also regularly carries out compliance reviews for firms of accountants which provides him with an invaluable insight into the practical financial reporting and auditing issues that they face.