Auditors demand that the general public sector not be overlooked of sustainability | Economy | EUROtoday

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Spain (ICJCE) offered this Thursday the Observatory of Information on Sustainability of the Public Sector, which features a instrument that enables figuring out public entities that, if relevant, would meet the factors of the directive relevant within the non-public sphere. An interactive map on the Institute’s web site will enable these entities to be displayed in a transparent and accessible means (https://www.icjce.es/observatorio).

The president of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Spain (ICJCE), Víctor Alió, accompanied by the president of the Institute of Accounting and Auditing of Accounts (ICAC), Santiago Durán; the president of the Las Palmas Group, Javier Álvarez; The president of the Tenerife Group, José Manuel Rodríguez, and the president of the Gran Canaria Cabildo, Antonio Morales, known as for the Public Sector to not be overlooked of sustainability regulation, in the course of the inauguration of the XXVI National Congress of Audit, which was held on the Canary Islands Conference Center and was attended by greater than 750 professionals and greater than 100 from corporations that characterize near 90% of the sector’s turnover.

“The report that accompanies the Observatory’s presentation is very clear and worrying: Public Administrations are falling behind worldwide and in Spain there are practically none that publish and verify information on sustainability. Our objective is for the Spanish Public Sector to lead the change towards sustainability reporting,” defined Víctor Alió.

Sustainability standards

The Observatory in relation to compliance with sustainability standards in public entities in Spain, addressing the applicability of the brand new European Sustainability Directive (Directive 2022/2464), reveals that, on the state stage, of the 311 public entities evaluated , 33.76% (105 entities) meet the necessities. At the regional stage, 210 public entities (18.7%) of the 1,123 entities meet the factors. And on the native stage, of the 740 native entities, 201 (27.16%) would meet the factors to supply info on sustainability.

“There is also no legislative reform planned to promote the transparency that is being demanded from the private sector. There are more than 500 entities in the Spanish Public Sector that, according to the criteria applied to the private sector, should publish and verify their information on sustainability and none will do so in the short and medium term. It is a situation that must change and we want to become the reference for this process since the progress in sustainability reports not only strengthens transparency, but also encourages public entities to be an example of environmental and social responsibility,” he stressed. Victor Alió.

Good prospects for growth and job creation

Despite the different crises that have occurred in recent years, the number of account audit jobs has continued to grow steadily and in 2023, close to 70,000 audits were carried out in Spain. The ICJCE expects that this record will be surpassed again in 2024 and that the trend will continue thanks to the increase in demand for jobs in the three areas that make up the ESG concept (Environmental, Social and Government), which will be, without a doubt, the main growth engine for audit firms in the coming years.

“In the last 10 years, billing for account auditing has grown by 41%, more than 22% in real terms, and the professionals available to firms in the audit area have grown by 80% and are approaching the 20,000 people. This data is only from audit services. If we included those generated by other activities, the evolution would be even better. Very few mature sectors, such as auditing, can present a balance of the decade like ours,” stated Víctor Alió.

Artificial Intelligence and new technologies

The adaptation to Artificial Intelligence and new technologies in auditing will generate changes in work processes, in the technical regulations of the sector, in the relationship with clients and with the supervisor and in the configuration of the firms, the international teams and networks.

“We have to change our organizations and our way of working because if we don’t our image and all the principles on which our firms are based will be at risk. I sincerely believe that this has to be one of our main objectives right now, and that AI and the rest of the technologies are going to help us overcome it, because these new tools will contribute to improving the efficiency of audit firms in all their procedures. internal and will act as a driving force for the evolution of business models in the sector,” highlighted Víctor Alió.

The supervision, rules and technical framework for auditing accounts must adapt to the technological surroundings on the identical tempo as the remainder of the financial system. “Artificial Intelligence and human intelligence in our firms complement each other, they are not exclusive, and they will be the basis of our training and growth. Audit reports will continue to be the responsibility and signed by human beings. And to respond to these challenges we need the Government, political parties, supervisors and the rest of the institutions with which we work to commit to the great consensus with which we have been working and to have a regulatory framework that measures very well the administrative and regulatory burdens with which We have to work,” Alió concluded.