The Importance of Audit Firm Characteristics and the Drivers of Auditor Change in UK Listed Companies

This paper explores the importance of audit firm characteristics and the factors motivating auditor change based on questionnaire responses from 210 listed UK companies (a response rate of 70%). Twenty-nine potentially desirable auditor characteristics are identified from the extant literature and their importance elicited. Exploratory factor analysis reduces these variables to eight uncorrelated underlying dimensions: reputation/quality; acceptability to third parties; value for money; ability to provide non-audit services; small audit firm; specialist industry knowledge; non-Big Six large audit firm; and geographical proximity. Insights into the nature of 'the Big Six factor' emerge. Two thirds of companies had recently considered changing auditors; the main reasons cited being audit fee level, dissatisfaction with audit quality and changes in top management. Of those companies that considered change, 73% did not actually do so, the main reasons cited being fee reduction by the incumbent and avoidance of disruption. Thus audit fee levels are both a key precipitator of change and a key factor in retaining the status quo

Investigation of tunnel movement of the Thameslink tunnels below site S3 of King’s cross zone development

Site S3 of the King’s Cross Development Zone is located in Central London to the North of King’s Cross Station. The site directly overlies the 11 m deep Thameslink twin-rail tunnels. The excavation of a rotary core borehole on site led to tunnel inward movement recorded by in-tunnel prism arrays. Live monitoring data has been used to investigate and determine the causal link between borehole RC1 and this movement. The borehole excavation lost excessive amounts of fluid flush into the London Clay. The interaction between flush fluid and soil is numerically investigated in this paper with an investigation into the numerical simulation of the physical excavation of the borehole itself. The aim of this research work is to investigate the mechanisms of movement that may have resulted in the tunnel deformation while numerical analysing the construction of the borehole in stages. Using a 2D plane strain model, the HSS (Hardening Soil with small strain) constitutive model has been utilised in order to recreate the stress history within the London Clay