The PMP involves the following steps:

  1. Practice reviewers appointed by the Public Accountants Oversight Committee (PAOC) inspect a selection of a public accountant’s audits to assess if the audits were performed in accordance with the professional standards (i.e. Singapore Standards on Auditing (SSAs) and/or 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 outcome and actions, if its view is that the public accountant has failed to observe, maintain or apply the prescribed professional standards1, or that compliance with the professional standards is assessed to be partially satisfactory or not satisfactory2.

  3. The PAOC decides on the review outcome and, if it concludes that the public accountant has failed to observe, maintain or apply the prescribed professional standards1, or that compliance with the professional standards is assessed to be partially satisfactory or not satisfactory2, orders the public accountant to undertake remedial actions, or makes other orders to protect the public interest. Find out more about PMP orders.

Public accountants that do not audit listed companies are generally 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 For the version of the Accountants Act that was in force prior to 1 July 2023, in which the outcome of PMP was either pass or fail
2 For the version of the Accountants Act that is in force from 1 July 2023, in which the categories of outcome of PMP (and their definition) are as follows:
Category of Outcome
Definition
Satisfactory
If the relevant professional standards/pronouncements have been complied with in all significant respects with no instance(s) of non-compliance
Satisfactory but with findings
If the relevant professional standards/pronouncements have been complied with in all significant respects, with limited and/or minor instance(s) of non-compliance
Partially Satisfactory
If extensive number of minor instances or more than minor instance(s) of non-compliance with relevant professional standards/pronouncements have been identified. However, the instances of non-compliance are not significant/severe 
Not Satisfactory
If extensive number and/or significant/severe and/or repeated non-compliances with relevant professional standards/pronouncements have been identified
Note: Significance/severity of non-compliance with relevant professional standards/pronouncements is assessed for each inspection finding, taking into account (i) extent of departure from the relevant professional standards/pronouncements; and/or (ii) materiality of misstatements.

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