ThinkTWENTY20

Like Canada’s other two standard-setting bodies, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AASB) has just released its three-year plan for setting auditing and assurance standards. According to the AASB, “strategic plans set out the broad strategic objectives that will guide the in achieving its public interest mandate over a multi-year period. The AASB decides on the strategic objectives after extensive stakeholder consultation.”

The AASB began developing its Strategic Plan 2022-2025 in October 2019 by considering significant domestic and global developments that affect stakeholders. In early 2020, the ASB drafted strategic directions and goals to address these developments. “After considering how the COVID-19 pandemic affected our strategic directions and goals we issued the Draft Strategic Plan 2022-2025 for public comment in January 2021.” To address Canadian and global developments, including COVID-19’s impact, the Board established the following strategic directions:

• reflect the increasing use of technology by entities and practitioners in standards and guidance;
• address the increasing complexity in the environment in standards and guidance;
• provide solutions that respond to the environment for small and medium-sized entities and allow practitioners to apply standards in a scalable and proportional way on the less complex elements of an entity;
• understand and respond to the evolving information needs of users;
• understand and respond to the expectations and changing public confidence in audits; and
• understand and assess the impact of a remote working environment on our standards and guidance.

The AASB also set the following goals to respond to the strategic directions. These goals will direct its Annual Plans for fiscal 2022 to 2025:

• monitor and understand emerging issues in the changing environment to better anticipate standard-setting issues;
• engage and collaborate with stakeholders to understand their needs and expectations;
• set high-quality standards and guidance that respond to the evolving needs and expectations of stakeholders;
• enhance the standard-setting processes and capabilities to develop more timely solutions; and
• support the effective implementation and application of standards and guidance to enhance consistency and quality in engagement performance.

To learn more, see Strategic Plan (frascanada.ca).