Cameron's Travelling Caravan

Judging by the comments made by David Cameron today at Davos, he does not have a high regard for lawyers and accountants:

"..the travelling caravan of lawyers, accountants and financial gurus just moves on elsewhere..."

I assume then that Cameron does his tax planning, arranges his trusts etc and completes his tax returns all by himself without the aid of the lawyers and accountants that he seems to despise so much?

Law Society 1 - ICAEW 0

By a majority of five to two, the Supreme Court confirmed the current position that Legal Advice Privilege (LAP) is confined to confidential legal advice provided by professional, qualified lawyers.

The Supreme Court accepted the Law Society’s position that LAP should not be extended beyond its current scope at common law, and that any such extension was a matter for Parliament.

Final score Law Society 1 - ICAEW 0

Find A Chartered Accountant

The ICAEW's Find a Chartered Accountant site has received a drubbing on the ICAEW Linkedin group.

David O'Keeffe started the discussion a fortnight ago:

"ICAEW's brand new Find A Chartered Accountant site is embarrassing

The site was launched yesterday but it has clearly not been properly tested and contains incorrect data.

When I checked out my own entry, I discovered it was missing. I tried to contact Tolley - who are providing the service for ICAEW - but, despite two emails, no one got back to me. My entry did mysteriously appear later in the afternoon, but it is incomplete. I have chased again, but still no response.

However, it's not only the incompleteness of my entry (and who knows how many others) that concerns me. Searching at my location (New Malden), the site tells me that there are 17 firms at that location. Expanding the search to within 1 mile of New Malden produces no firms at all (where did the initial 17 go?) This is also true as we go further out, until we get to 30 miles from New Malden where, suddenly, there are 20 firms - but, (wait for it) they are all in NORTHERN IRELAND! Are Tolley using Apple's mapping app, I wonder?

If you search at >100 miles from New Malden, you find a total of 21,381 firms. This, presumably, should be everyone in the database, but it is actually greater than the number of firms listed in the root search (ie with no filters at all).

This would all be mildly amusing (as well as personally irritating that my entry is still incorrect) if it weren't for the fact that this is a public tool. What sort of impression does it create of our Institute and of Chartered Accountants generally? Why was this site launched without proper testing and verification of the data?"

Has anyone else experienced problems with the site?

Kudos To Vernon Soare

Kudos to Vernon Soare, executive director of professional standards at ICAEW, for exposing the lie behind the oft used phrase "banking profession"!

Accountancy Age's Financial Power List 2013: Big Hitters

I have been placed 25th on Accountancy Age's Financial Power List 2013: Big Hitters, a rundown of who the magazine thinks will be the biggest players in accounting and finance during 2013.

25 Ken Frost, serial blogger and HMRC agitator
A long-time thorn in the side of the ICAEW in his blogging capacity, Frost has found that HMRC's travails have taken up a bigger chunk of his social media efforts. Not that the institute is out of his line of vision, but his probing questions and good contact base make http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.co.uk an amusing and revealing read.