CA ANZ has lodged its submission on the IAASB's Proposed Strategy and Work Plan 2024-2027.

Overall, we support the IAASB’s Proposed Strategy and Work Plan. We commend the board for including the need to consider the timeliness of its workplan to ensure that appropriate outreach can be undertaken in standard settings.

However, we raised a concern regarding the inclusion of “more specificity to achieve increased enforceability for regulators” as a proposed strategic driver. We believe that the IAASB’s standards must remain principles-based as this is the most effective way to promote audit quality. Increased specificity, or overly prescriptive standards, drive a compliance-based audit mindset which is not effective in dealing with the complex nature of today’s entities, financial reporting and audits. It risks compromising audit quality in order to make regulatory action more efficient, which we believe is counter-productive to the overall aim of auditing standards.