When Sarbanes-Oxley was introduced nearly six years ago, it was supposed to improve the way audit committees and companies handled risk. Think again.

Most companies are struggling to deal with risk, let alone understand it, according to a new report from KPMG.

KPMG found that just about one in four (28 per cent) of audit committee members claimed they were "very satisfied" with the process used to identify risk and nearly half said the audit committee had been assigned too much responsibility for risk oversight. And IT risk was regarded as the biggest hot spot.

Another way of looking at it is that companies are now less confident because risk is now more prominent as an issue. Still, this survey will provide more ammunition for the SOX-bashers.