Woolf: Common sense beats rules

Shouldn’t auditors go back to the time when they refused to approve anything considered ‘rubbish’, asks Emile Woolf

The argument about auditors’ contribution to the 2008 debt crisis is still unresolved, and it will remain so until the central question of audit scope is addressed. The traditional perception that auditing has a historic focus merely entrenches its uselessness in the face of a radically altered commercial environment and risk levels that demand a fresh approach to the going concern assumption.