Enhancing the Public Interest
Enhancing confidence in corporate reporting and in the services of professional accountants, auditors and other assurance providers
The Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) is committed to serving the public interest by overseeing the multi-stakeholder and independent standard-setting boards that set high-quality international audit and assurance, ethics, and independence standards.
Why was the PIOB set up?
The PIOB was established in 2005, following a series of high-profile corporate scandals (Enron, the dot.com bubble) which undermined the public’s confidence in the credibility of independent audit opinions and fostered instability in global stock markets.
The fallout from the crisis underscored the need for high-quality, broadly applicable international accounting and audit standards that would work toward strengthening and bringing consistency to financial reporting worldwide. The PIOB´s mission is, therefore, to ensure relevant audit and assurance, ethics, and independence standards that are responsive to the public interest.
What is the International Standard-Setting Structure?
The PIOB is part of a three-tier international standard-setting structure made up of:
The Monitoring Group (MG) is a group of international financial institutions and regulatory bodies committed to advancing the public interest in areas related to international audit, assurance, ethics, and independence standard setting and audit quality. The MG is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the overall standard-setting system to ensure its independence, multi-stakeholder inclusiveness, and its responsiveness to the public interest.
The Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB), which provides oversight of the standard-setting process to ensure that international audit, assurance, ethics, and independence standards are responsive to the public interest and manages appointments to the SSBs and the Stakeholder Advisory Council (SAC) to ensure a multis-stakeholder composition.
The International Foundation for Ethics and Audit (IFEA), the independent non-profit organization that houses the two standard-setting boards, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) (collectively the SSBs).
Three-Tier Standard-Setting Structure
The monitoring group
Standard setting
What are the Monitoring Group Recommendations?
In 2020, the Monitoring Group issued its Recommendations with the objective of implementing an independent and inclusive multistakeholder standard-setting system that is responsive to the public interest in the development of timely, high-quality ethics, audit, and assurance standards that respond to an accelerated pace of change. These changes are critical to maintaining and improving trust in the quality of financial and non-financial reporting.
The implementation of the MG Recommendations began in 2021 through:
The establishment of the SSB Nominations Committee (SSB NomCo) to manage the selection process of members on the SSB and SAC and make recommendations for appointment to the PIOB.
The use of the Public Interest Framework (PIF) as a central tool to ensure that the SSBs’ activities are focused on serving the public interest and align with (public interest oversight criteria.
The establishment of the International Foundation for Ethics and Audit (IFEA).
Today, the PIOB continues to play a critical role in providing independent oversight of the public interest responsiveness of auditing, assurance, ethics, and independence standard-setting globally.
