Audit Commission

The Audit Practice is similar to the audit departments of major professional services firms. It complies with the same professional standards and has a similar professional infrastructure.

The Commission's Audit Practice is dedicated to the audit of public sector bodies. As a public audit agency we need to be able to provide assurance to our audit clients, government and other stakeholders, and the public that the audit work delivered is of an appropriate quality.

We therefore believe it is right that we should publish an annual report giving information on the work of Audit Practice, including on its structure and governance and on its systems for ensuring audit quality. Our annual report puts into the public domain information about the results of our internal quality monitoring programme and of quality reviews of our work by external inspectors.

We believe that publishing these reports serves to:

• demonstrate our unequivocal commitment to delivering audit quality;
• provide assurance to clients and key external stakeholders about both the arrangements we have put in place to ensure audit quality and the underlying strength of the Audit Practice; and
• enable them to compare our audit practice with other auditors.

Audit appointments

The Audit Practice undertakes audit appointments to around 70 per cent of the audits within the Audit Commission regime - in 2010/11 some 650 principal bodies and over 2,500 smaller bodies (such as town and parish councils and internal drainage boards).

Principal audit appointments at April 2011

Details of all our audit appointments under the Audit Commission regime are published in the Audit Commission's annual directory of audit appointments.