The PMP is rigorous and involves three steps:

  1. Practice reviewers appointed by the Public Accountants Oversight Committee (PAOC) inspect a selection of a public accountant’s audits to check if the audits were performed in accordance with the Singapore Standards on Auditing (SSA) and other requirements.
  2. The practice reviewer’s findings are reviewed by the Practice Monitoring Sub-Committee (PMSC), which comprises experienced public accountants and lay-members. The PMSC then reports to the PAOC with recommended actions, if its view is that the public accountant has not complied with the SSA.
  3. The PAOC decides on the review outcome and, if it concludes that the public accountant has not complied with the SSA and other requirements, orders the public accountant to undertake remedial actions, or makes other orders to protect the public interest. Find out more about PMP orders.

When ACRA inspects public accountants in accounting entities that audit listed companies and other public interest entities1, it reviews the firm’s quality control policies against the Singapore Standard on Quality Control 1 and recommends improvements where appropriate.

Public accountants that do not audit PIEs are inspected by practice reviewers employed by the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (“ISCA”) and appointed by the PAOC. The reports from these inspections are submitted to the PMSC and PAOC as with all other PMP inspection reports.

1 The phrase “public interest entities” as used here has the same meaning as defined in the Code of professional Conduct and Ethics for Public Accountants and Accounting Entities at the Fourth Schedule of the Accountants (Public Accountants) Rules.

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