Accounting, auditing standards setting transfer to be fast-tracked

Commerce Minister Simon Power today announced that all accounting and auditing standards-setting responsibilities will be consolidated within the External Reporting Board. 

The External Reporting Board will replace the Accounting Standards Review Board next year.

"I'm making this early announcement to provide certainty for everyone involved in standards-setting," Mr Power said.

The changes were canvassed last year in the Review of the Financial Reporting Framework discussion document.  Submissions confirmed widespread support for the changes, particularly from the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, and the Accounting Standards Review Board.

The consolidation of standards-setting will remove the statutory responsibilities that the Institute of Chartered Accountants has in relation to accounting and auditing standards-setting.

"The institute has made an outstanding contribution to standards setting for more than three decades.

"However, this change needs to happen.  The split of functions between the ASRB and the institute makes coordinated service delivery more complicated.  There is also an international consensus that standards-setting should be seen to be independent of the interests of the profession.

"I am also fast-tracking the standards-setting changes.  These changes will be added to a bill I will be introducing later this year to improve auditor regulation.  The bill should be enacted in 2011."