Earlier this year, I looked at some of the problems the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has doing its job.

These include, for example, the amount of time that passes between the PCAOB inspection and the date it issues its report. And the ridiculous situation where Sarbanes-Oxley prohibits the PCAOB from disclosing criticisms of a firm's quality controls, unless that firm fails to correct deficiencies within 12 months. And for that matter, the PCAOB criticizing an audit firm's work with a client without identifying that client.

In other words, the law is structured in a way that keeps investors in the dark.

Now a new study, as reported by Sarah Johnson at CFO.com, identifies new deficiencies. The PCAOB provides little information to clients as to whether their auditors are up to scratch. "The fundamental problem is that the PCAOB discloses the deficiencies on each engagement sampled by the inspectors and fails to provide a balanced evaluation of the firm's overall level of quality," the researchers said.

The lack of information and clout allows the audit firms to take issue with the PCAOB reports, and ignore the watchdog's findings.

The report notes there has been an improvement in audit quality. It's just that their clients wouldn't be able to pick it up from the PCAOB. And if better systems were in place, there would be an even bigger impact on audit quality.