Interesting question is why it has taken so long for white paper to appear
The usual shorthand to describe a government white paper that has taken ages to trundle down the runway is “long awaited”. The phrase doesn’t do justice to the slow progress of the business department’s consultation on audit and corporate governance reforms.
BHS failed in 2016 and Carillion in the first month of 2018. The three government-commissioned reviews of the audit industry, which provide the backbone of the proposals, landed in 2018 and 2019. Even the auditors, the focus of biggest shake-up, want to hurry up and are already putting in the place the required separation of auditing operations from consulting divisions.
