Profiling membership in the PCAOB’s standing advisory group

Abstract

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) appoints an advisory group known as the Standing Advisory Group (SAG) to provide input on the relevance and appropriateness of its standard-setting agenda. Throughout the year, the PCAOB convenes meetings where the SAG opines on the direction of authoritative guidance on behalf of constituent groups. Our descriptive study provides an overview of the SAG’s composition and role in standard-setting and succinctly describes the group members’ professional experience since its inception in 2004. Specifically, we examine to what extent the PCAOB assembles the advisory group in consideration of the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA), which mandates appropriate constituent representation on governmental advisory boards. We find that although the PCAOB is not required to meet the requirements of the FACA, the SAG appears to represent an appropriate level and variety of professional experience consistent with other governmental advisory boards.