inability reports are satisfied. The report may include the organization's policies and inter practices. Dando and Swift (2003) stated that the role of independent external assurance plays a greater importance in ensuring that the reporter presents non-financial information that is fair, complete, unbiased and relevant. It is hoped that with external assurance, the credibility of the non-financial information is sustained and the trust of the stakeholders towards the management is built.
According to a public sector survey conducted by the Royal NIVRA Amsterdam (2008), users regard relevance as important as reliability, but they often start with the assumption that the information is already reliable by itself. Thus, communication between the management, users and auditors of non-financial information is truly vital to enhance the quality of the non-financial information. Assurance comes into the picture when the users of the financial information want reliable information. Auditors can only provide quality assurance on the relevance and reliability of information with clear deï¬nition, frame of reference and reporting framework with regards to their audit fieldwork. Auditors can only provide assurance if they have a clear framework to assess the information and have sufficient knowledge about the organizations and their information systems.
Assurance serves a great importance to the credibility of disclosed information. It minimises the level of noise contained in the disclosed information and facilitates greater user confidence. Assurance providers develop a reputation throughout their auditing profession, and this has placed the standards and quality controls to guarantee the consistent quality of engagements that are being undertaken by their members (Simnett, Vanstraelen and Wai, 2006).
According to Main and Hespenheide (2011), accountants, especially the assurers, should have the knowledge of social, environmental and sustainability issues in order to support the development of internationally accepted measurement and reporting standards. This is done so that assurers fully understand the implications of providing non-financial assurance. Professionals' assurance would ensure that the non-financial reports have been given the due care needed to provide readers with confidence that all concerns, such as materiality, risk management and future proofing have been addressed. Recognized quality standards can also be met if the assurance on the non-financial information is relevant and reliable. In the case whereby the management is responsible for any inaccuracies in the non-financial information, independent external assurance can provide evidence on the inaccuracy and report about it to the shareholders.
Professional accounting associations, such as the large accounting (Big 4) firms, have stated their commitment to CSR and sustainability. The accounting profession's role in CSR is to prepare audit or assurance statements to CSR or sustainability reports. In Corporate Social Reporting, there are 11 reporting principles with similar attributes as financial accounting. Stanwick and Stanwick (2006) stated that these 11 principles are auditability, completeness, relevance, accuracy, neutrality, comparability, and timeliness, transparency, inclusiveness, clarity and context (as cited in Tilt, 2009). Assurance ensures that these reporting principles are followed ac
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