Will Singapore audit landscape take its cue from UK if its audit shake-up leads to higher fees?

IT WAS bound to come to this: the overhaul of the auditing industry in the United Kingdom is set to result in higher audit fees for the companies and businesses paying for them, as audit firms in the UK have recently indicated. Given that such changes are expected to have a knock-on effect, it's pertinent to look at the likely impact this will have in Singapore.

To recap, the revamp of the auditing industry in the UK - an effort that has extended all the way up to the British Parliament - follows some very public audit failures in the country, which had called into question the quality of audit work being offered.

The British government launched two separate reviews last year, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) looking into what can be done to improve the audit sector, and the government assessing how the…