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The right balance

Enhancing the quality of how pension scheme balances are audited

Solving complex problems is what we do best, bringing together the brightest minds from across our firm to tackle issues as one.

Our audit team and pensions consulting group – Deloitte Total Reward and Benefits (DTRB) – have transformed how companies’ pension scheme balances are audited. A highly technical area of corporate reporting, it is also one of significant public interest following the Financial Reporting Council’s 2017 Audit Quality Review public report for Deloitte, which called for improvement in pension balance auditing.

The cross service line team set out to further enhance the quality of these audits and to simplify a complicated and time-consuming process. The aim was two-fold: first, to help individuals across audit teams, no matter their level, to increase their understanding of the audit being undertaken, and, second, to enhance the audit risk assessment process for pension balances risk to ensure the most pertinent issues were being examined by DTRB.

Consistency is key

The solution included the development of an analytics tool, involving audit analytic experts in collaboration with our DTRB specialists and Pension Audit Centre of Excellence, both of which are based in our Belfast Pension Centre. The analytics tool allows our audit professionals to benchmark assumptions required for the audit such as discount rates, inflation and mortality figures – all of which have empowered our auditors’ understanding of pension balances and promoted greater consistency across audits.

The technology has also freed up our DTRB team’s time and as a result, they can focus on the highest risk audits and investigate when something isn’t right. More broadly, the tool gives our teams a clearer picture on pension balance auditing, meaning client conversations are more constructive.

None of this would have been possible without Deloitte’s multi-disciplinary model and specialist teams coming together to bring the best of what Deloitte has to offer to clients.

Contact

George Parrett

Public Relations Manager

+44 (0)20 7007 7285

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