The recent news that the ICAEW merger proposal has been put on hold, pending further "discussions" with CIMA, should come as no surprise.
I refer to an article in Accountancy Age that appeared on the 23rd of September 2004.
In summary, the article noted that CIMA had thrown out the merger proposals in July. Consent was only given, at a special meeting held in September, to "consult" and negotiate further; ie they did not agree to proceed with a merger.
It seems that at the time, some CIMA council members were "furious" about the merger announcement in September.
Given the above, it is surely no surprise that CIMA have again rejected the idea of merging.
What is surprising, and very disappointing, is that the Council of the ICAEW have continued to waste time and members' money; on protracted discussions and expensive presentations in promoting an idea that is clearly not welcomed.
Would it not be better for the Council of the ICAEW to address the so called "demographic time bomb" directly, by identifying the causes of a falling membership; instead of sweeping them under the carpet by way of a merger?
Views anyone?
I find it odd that the ICAEW Council should vote to continue with the merger when it should be clear that it has no chance of success. The current scheme is more half-baked than its predecessors all which failed.
ReplyDeleteThe ICAEW Council should be radically changed. There should be a maximum of 30 members and any one of them should be able to put up for President with the members voting on the appointment at the AGM.
Jeff Wooller (ICAEW Ginger Group -not officially recognised)
ICAEW has come to term to realise that it can no longer gain the favour of young aspiring acountants based on its past prestige as the chartered accountants entrenched in the acountancy firms, that was just past ignorance due to lack of comparison and early bird advantage. Today, people in most countries find that other qualificaions, esp ACCA qualified acountants are, if not better, at least equally competent and are running MNC in many countries all over the world very sucessfully! So why bother about this past illusion of a so-called prestgious qualification that only had the advantage of being the earlier accountancy qualification. ACCA is more if not, at least equally tough in its exams but are more flexible in its ability to train and benefit aspiring acountants through the world...that is, if one wants to talk about prestige! But, otherwise, I find that the UK professional accountants, whether ACA, ACCA or CIMA are equally good accountancy qualifications compared to others in other parts of the world. In fact, if merger were to be a fashion, it might be more fashionable to just merge all UK bodies under one umbrella and create faculties of specialties...then promote this merged organisation to the whole world...just a though!
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