Accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers has been slapped with a record fine over its audit of crisis-hit finance firm RSM Tenon - months after it was fined a record amount over its handling of another client.

The accounting watchdog has “severely reprimanded” PwC and fined it £6m, reduced to £5.1m after a settlement discount, following an investigation into the 2011 accounts of RSM Tenon, which went bust in 2013.

In its conclusion the Financial Reporting Council said it had found evidence of "extensive" misconduct from PwC and one of its senior audit partners Nicholas Boden, who is also being fined £114,750 for the audit.

"The admitted acts of misconduct include failures to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence and failures to exercise sufficient professional scepticism," it said.

Mr Boden and PwC, which also has to pay £500,000 in legal costs, admitted their conduct “fell significantly short of the standards reasonably to be expected”.