Independent partner review

They are different. See page 46 of notes for EQCR – this has a very specific purpose (QC of the engagement) and the independent reviewer will normally be a partner but not necessarily.

“Independent (partner) review” is a broader term – e.g. a safeguard for the provision of a non-assurance service could be review of the valuation work (say) – not necessarily the audit work.

I can only reiterate:
An EQCR must be carried out by an independent reviewer – who may or may not be a partner.
An independent reviewer may carry out reviews other than EQCRs.

“independent” review – is a generic term which simply means that the review of the subject matter is conducted by someone independent of the subject matter. That person could be another partner inside the firm or a consultant outside the firm.

Engagement Quality Control Review – is a specific term for the process of a “hot” (i.e. pre-issuance) review which must include the matters listed at the bottom of page 46 of the notes and – in respect of a listed company – must also consider the matters listed at the top of page 47.

Engagement Quality Control Reviewer – “a partner, other person in the firm, suitably qualified external person, or a team made up of such individuals, NONE of whom is part of the engagement team”.

By definition an EQC Review is “hot”. Let’s say Adrian Light does a hot review of X plc – he will be called the EQC Reviewer.
Let’s say he also does a cold review of Z Co – he is obviously doing a quality control review but he wouldn’t be called an EQC Reviewer for Z Co because the review is cold – not hot.

As a generalisation this is true – see Chapter 4 in our notes.
However, in practice (and for discussion in an exam Q) it depends on:
* The nature of the internal audit activities – how great is the self-review threat? to what extent does it involve assuming management responsibilities?
* The safeguards available and whether they can reduce the threats to an acceptable level.

Bearing in mind that independence is not just “of mind” but “in appearance” – if a newspaper were to report that an audit firm missed a fraud (say) in an audit client for which it was carrying out internal audit services – do you think the newspaper would make the distinction “oh – but there were separate departments/different teams”? Even if it did, would the reader not think that in any case the independence of the audit firm must have been compromised? For this reason, providing internal audit services that relate to financial reporting/financial accounting controls etc is PROHIBITED for public interest entity audit clients. That is – the threat cannot be reduced by the application of safeguards. You will find further discussion and examples in our notes.

You’re welcome!