Subsection 1520 of the Standards of Practice (SOP) contains the Joint Policy Statement (JPS) of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) (the legacy organization of CPA Canada) “concerning an Auditor’s use of the work of an Actuary and an Actuary’s use of the work of an Auditor in connection with the preparation and Audit of Financial Statements.”
The current JPS was approved in 2007 and has not been revised in 15 years. There may be areas in the audit of amounts determined using actuarial calculations that have evolved. Consequently, the JPS may no longer reflect how auditors and actuaries interact and the way they use each other’s work.
There is also a booklet available on the CIA website entitled, “CICA – CIA Guide: Audits of Financial Statements That Contain Amounts That Have Been Determined Using Actuarial Calculations” which was issued by the CIA and CICA in 2011.
Both documents need to be updated as a result of evolving practices since 2007, the upcoming IFRS 17 Accounting Standards effective January 1, 2023, and potentially Canadian Auditing Standards (CAS) 315 Identifying and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement, CAS 540 Auditing Accounting Estimates and Related Disclosures, and CAS 701 Communicating Key Audit Matters in the Independent Auditor’s Report.