F1Part 5ALocal audit: further provision

Partnerships

32EEffect of appointing a partnership

(1)

This section applies where a partnership constituted under the law of—

(a)

England and Wales,

(b)

Northern Ireland, or

(c)

any other country or territory in which a partnership is not a legal person,

is appointed as a local auditor under section 6G or 7.

(2)

Unless a contrary intention appears, the appointment is an appointment of the partnership as such and not of the partners.

(3)

Where the partnership ceases, the appointment is to be treated as extending to—

(a)

any appropriate partnership which succeeds to the practice of that partnership, or

(b)

any other appropriate person who succeeds to that practice having previously carried it on in partnership.

(4)

For the purposes of subsection (3)—

(a)

a partnership is to be regarded as succeeding to the practice of another partnership only if the members of the successor partnership are substantially the same as those of the former partnership, and

(b)

a partnership or other person is to be regarded as succeeding to the practice of a partnership only if the partnership or person succeeds to the whole or substantially the whole of the business of the former partnership.

(5)

Where the partnership ceases and the appointment is not treated under subsection (3) as extending to any partnership or other person, the appointment may with the requisite consent be treated as extending to an appropriate partnership, or other appropriate person, that succeeds to—

(a)

the business of the former partnership, or

(b)

such part of it as is agreed by the appointing authority is to be treated as comprising the appointment.

(6)

The requisite consent is that of—

(a)

the Local Audit Office, where the relevant authority to which the appointment relates is not a health service body, or

(b)

where that authority is a health service body, the body.

(7)

For the purposes of this section, a partnership or other person is “appropriate” if the partnership or person—

(a)

is a registered local audit provider, and

(b)

is not prohibited by section 32B from acting as the local auditor of the relevant authority concerned.