Project Associate, Governance and Culture in Birmingham

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is responsible for the regulation of UK statutory auditors and audit firms and for monitoring developments in the market. We aim, through our supervision and oversight, to develop a fair, evidence-based and comprehensive view of these firms, to judge whether they are being run in a manner that enhances audit quality and supports the resilience of individual firms and the wider audit market. We adopt a forward-looking supervisory approach to audit firms, and we hold firms to account for making the changes needed to safeguard and improve audit quality.

Audit Market Supervision (AMS) takes a cross-market approach to areas of importance to audit quality and audit firm resilience, assessing the effectiveness of the audit firms’ arrangements in the following areas:

• Audit quality management arrangements
• Governance and leadership
• Values and culture
• Risk and resilience
• Operational separation (Big 4 only)

Staff have a range of backgrounds (governance, culture, risk management, internal audit, regulation, and external audit) representing the broad subject matter within the team’s remit.

The AMS Head of Leadership, Governance and Culture is seeking to appoint a Project Associate to contribute to the team’s work assessing and monitoring leadership, governance and culture at large audit firms. This is an exciting opportunity to work within a developing area of audit market supervision and help shape the future development of the audit profession.

The Role:

The Project Associate will collaborate within a team under the guidance of the Project Directors. They will work closely with other team members to support the delivery of AMS’ supervisory activities and projects focused on leadership, governance, culture and conduct. This will include:

• Contributing to assessments of the implementation of the Audit Firm Governance Code and the Principles of Operational Separation by larger audit firms.
• Supporting activities to assess how well large audit firms promote and monitor a culture that underpins audit quality, including benchmarking against standards to promote continuous improvement.
• Contributing to assessments of audit firms’ application of the governance and culture elements of the International Standard on Quality Management 1 (ISQM 1).
• Providing administrative and organisational support to the Project Directors in respect of our regular engagement with audit firms and their Independent Non-Executives.
• Supporting projects monitoring: i) the compliance of audit firms’ transparency reports with relevant rules and regulations; and ii) the quality of reporting by the audit committees of FTSE 350 companies.

In the course of these activities, the Project Associate will need to:

• Analyse and interpret data and information from various sources, drawing out insights and developing general observations and possible recommendations to share with the Project Directors;
• Communicate information clearly, concisely and coherently to colleagues and external stakeholders;
• Manage their workload to meet timelines and deadlines;
• Contribute to the management of AMS relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including with the largest audit firms.

The Person:

We are seeking an individual with a degree and/or professional qualification and a number of years working experience in governance and/or culture management at a large company or other large organisation. Any of the following would be an advantage:

• Chartered Governance Professional qualification from the Chartered Governance Institute;
• Experience of working in a regulatory or supervisory role;
• Experience of working in an audit firm environment;
• An understanding or background in behavioural science.

Possess a broad understanding of the audit profession and the regulatory framework around audits or large companies. Be able to demonstrate a broad understanding of the role of governance and of how good governance arrangements work and/or of how culture drives behaviour and how organisations manage culture. Experienced in building relationships with clients or other external stakeholders. Be able to work collaboratively as part of a team. Understand when to consult with, or escalate matters to, more senior colleagues to facilitate progress and guide decision making. Be able to source and identify relevant information, sorting and analysing complex information to enable judgements about compliance, good and poor practice by audit firms. Possess strong written and oral communication skills. Possess strong organisational and time management skills and proven ability to manage work within the timetable set and to meet deadlines with limited supervision. Possess strong IT skills, particularly Microsoft Office, and familiarity with basic AI tools.