CIMA Explores Routes To Membership With ICAS and CIPFA

AccountancyAge reports that CIMA is in discussion with ICAS and CIPFA about offering routes to CIMA membership and the CGMA designation.

The institute said it will discuss how it can co-operate with CIPFA to strengthen public sector financial management. CIMA will also discuss routes for senior members of ICAS as well as other ways in which they can work together for the benefit of their members and the profession, it said.

ICAEW - The Video

The ICAEW have published a jolly wee promotional video outlining (albeit very briefly) its foundation, founding fathers and place in the modern world.

I am pleased to see that phrase "chartered accountant" has been used.

However, it also claims that it was founded in the UK; is that entirely accurate given that Scotland has its own institute, and that the video shows only England and Wales in red (symbolising the region that the ICAEW was founded in)?

Chartered Accountants Worldwide Created

The ICAEW has announced the birth of a new organisation, Chartered Accountants Worldwide, which brings together the members of leading institutes to create a community of hundreds of thousands of Chartered Accountants in more than 180 countries.

The organisation comprises six professional bodies:

- ICAEW
- ICAS
- Chartered Accountants Ireland
- Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia
- New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants
- The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants

Chartered Accountants Worldwide aims to provide:

• a consistent platform globally to promote the expertise of Chartered Accountants
• the ability to maximise opportunities to work anywhere around the world
• greater opportunity to connect and network with your peers worldwide
• access to member facilities in other partner institutes including events, technical information, business centres, libraries, information services, websites and newsletters

Connecting hundreds of thousands of members and students, it aims to:

• promote the commitment of our global membership to the highest standards of professional and ethical practice
• create greater opportunities globally for those seeking to become or develop as Chartered Accountants – and those looking to train or employ them
• share expertise and innovation to maintain Chartered Accountancy’s position as the preeminent qualification for those in accountancy, finance and business.

Meanwhile the Global Accounting Alliance (founded in 2006 and which also includes a.o. the ICAEW) still exists:

"Representing over 700,000 of the world's leading professional accountants, the Global Accounting Alliance will promote quality professional services, global membership support, share information and collaborate on important international issues.

The Alliance will work with national regulators, governments and stakeholders, through member-body collaboration, articulation of consensus views, and working in collaboration, where possible, with other international bodies."

Is it possible that there is a wee bit of an overlap here?

Cameron Lambastes Accountants Again! - ICAS Weighs In

I am pleased to see than Anton Colella (CEO of ICAS) is also less than impressed with Cameron's comments about accountants:

""People want to know that we’re not just a bunch of accountants trying to turn around the British economy as if it were a failing company, but that we’re resolutely on their side as we do,” said Prime Minister David Cameron earlier this week. It’s an unhappy irony that, in making an appealing point, Mr Cameron should malign an entire group of hard-working professionals.

ICAS represents over 19,000 world-class business-women and business-men. Now that’s just a – big – bunch of chartered accountants (CAs).

But it’s also a bunch of dedicated and passionate professionals, working to serve clients and investors in the public interest.

It’s a bunch of business leaders, who head up some of the biggest companies in the country, in public practice and in a myriad of business roles, providing employment, innovation and tax revenue.

It’s a bunch of volunteers, who provide their expertise to a range of charities across the UK and abroad with organisations like Accounting for Development, an organisation which matches CAs with organisations in developing nations.

I am sure Mr Cameron didn’t really intend to denigrate accountants. However, the notion of accountants as uncaring bean-counters is at odds with my experience of enthusiastic, hard-working CAs, whose energy and insights and will be key drivers of the UK economy’s recovery.

Prudence is a watch-word for accountants; in reporting, in auditing, in projecting. Prudent phrasing, in this case, might have helped avoid one group of people feeling as though Mr Cameron was not resolutely on their side."

The drip drip of negative comments about accountants, tax efficient schemes, tax avoidance etc, that are coming from Osborne and Cameron, are deliberately designed to play to people's prejudices about the profession and about those involved in the "dark arts" of financial advice.

It undermines the brand value of accountancy as a profession. We should not simply roll over passively, like some pitiful Victorian clerk, and let the politicians use our profession for their own political ends.

As I said a couple of days ago, an open joint letter from the UK's leading accounting bodies is required.

Plus members of the profession should tweet @Number10gov to tell Cameron to stop this nonsense, and make #accountinggate a trending topic.

Accountancy Asleep At The Wheel

Kudos to Christie Malry, of FCAblog, for highlighting Accountancy's faux pas over their article about Anton Colella being appointed CEO of ICAS.

As Christie points out, Anton has been CEO of ICAS since 2006.

I dare say that Accountancy may not be delighted to have this error so publicly pointed out, and could possibly strike Christie from their subscription list.

Oh, hang on a minute, Accountancy will be charging for their services next year (as the ICAEW has parted ways with them). Therefore it is up to Christie and others as to whether they choose to continue to subscribe to the magazine (£79.20 per annum), and/or pay the absurd charge of £239 for access to their website.

Can you guess what they will choose to do children?

ICAS Unveils New Website and Logo

ICAS has unveiled a new website and logo, four coloured circles, with an emphasis on the "CA" part of ICAS (ICAEW take note!), as part of a rebranding exercise, in order to increase engagement and improve communications with members.

Carry On CCAB

Accountancy Age reports that the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) will continue operate without CIMA.

The ICAEW, ACCA, ICAS, CIPFA and Chartered Accountants Ireland will remain in it.

As I noted in March 2011 CCAB has been rather quiet,  not having issued a press release since 2009; yet still charging fees to its members!

However, Michael Izza (CEO of the ICAEW and CCAB secretary) has stated that it will "provide a unified voice on matters of common interest" he went on to say that the the institutes took a "hard look" at whether it was worth continuing as the CCAB.

"Having soul-searched, we decided to carry on."

Does this mean the same frequency of press releases?

The Alliance

Congratulations to Anton Colella, the Chief Executive of ICAS, who has been elected Chair of the Global Accounting Alliance (the umbrella body which represents more than 775,000 accountants around the world).

Anton takes up the two-year non-executive position from November.

As I noted back in April 2006, the GAA proves that ICAS and ICAEW can work together!

I also noted the following:

"If you look up the registration of www.globalaccountingalliance.co.uk, you will see that it was registered on 15th September 2005 by the ICAEW.

This was before the merger motion was defeated in October 2005. This implies that the wheels were already in motion for the creation of the GAA.

Why then, if the ICAEW was working towards a global alliance at that stage, did they persist in telling the members that the most effective way of making our voice heard on the world/national stage was via merging with CIMA/CIPFA?

FYI, I have registered www.globalaccountingalliance.org.uk in my name, and will ensure that it redirects to this site in the next 48 hours."

Note, for reasons best known the the GAA and the ICAEW, the www.globalaccountingalliance.co.uk website leads nowhere now  (even though it is still owned by the ICAEW).

Why is that then?

Details about the appointment (below) are provided by ICAS:

The Global Accounting Alliance (GAA) is an alliance of leading professional accountancy bodies. It was created to promote quality services, share information and collaborate on international issues. The GAA works with national regulators, governments and stakeholders to take a global lead for the profession. It is headquartered in Sydney.
The GAA operates in around 165 countries. Its members are The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA)
Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA)
Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA)
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
Chartered Accountants Ireland (ICAI)
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS)
The Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (JICPA)
New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA)
South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)
Institut der Wirtschaftsprüfer in Deutschland e.V. (IDW)

Anton Colella said, "It is a great honour to be appointed as Chair of such a prestigious global body, representing more than three quarters of a million accountants.  This is an interesting and pivotal time for the accountancy profession.  ICAS and the other 10 membership bodies of the GAA collaborate closely to ensure we speak together and are a leading voice on the key international issues that surround our profession.  The shared expertise of the GAA is a gateway for accountants to grow and develop in what is becoming one of the first professions to be truly global.”

Anton was appointed Chief Executive of ICAS in 2006. 

Membership Fees

The FCABlog has a handy summary of the fees charged by the various accounting bodies in the UK.

The ICAEW and ICAS come out as the most expensive.

Anal Issues

Accountancy Age reports that Alan Livesey, an ex ICAEW Scottish council member, is none too happy with the ICAEW over rules "fudging" at the recent elections.

The ICAEW is trying to ditch its "boring Blighty" connections/brand, by growing internationally (coming soon a motion to change the name). As such council composition has been changed, and the number of reps from UK constituencies cut (eg Scotland lost one of its two council members - can you guess who?).

Note: does anyone not see the irony that the "English" Institute has Scottish councillors, given that the "English" Institute once rejected a merger with its Scottish brethren and vice versa?

Anyhoo, it seems that "technical errors" meant that the required period between voting and Tuesday's AGM (constitutionally set at 14 days) was breached, forcing an emergency suspension of election rules.

This was approved by the majority of council members. However, Livesey argues:

"There appears to be one set of rules for the masses and another, seemingly unchangeable set of rules for the institute."

All very "anal" maybe, but it rather misses the point.

As long as the ICAEW claims to be the "English" Institute, it should not bring in non institute members to council without first clarifying to its main membership why international growth is to the benefit (as opposed cost) of its members and brand value of its qualification.

ICAS Leads The Way

As I have noted on my HMRC site, ICAS have put a very well aimed and targeted boot into the "delicates" of HMRC, in respect of HMRC's Impact Assessment of Business Record Checks.

ICAS are of the view that business records checks could cost SMEs at least 10 times more than HMRC's guesstimate, and will impose an absurd administrative burden on SMEs.

In HMRC's fantasy land each visit, averaging half a day, will cost a business £54. However, ICAS has re-costed an average visit using realistic estimates of business disruption and adviser's time and have come up with a total of at least £560 per visit.

ICAS is also somewhat wary of HMRC's fantasy plans to visit 50,000 SMEs each year for four years.

That would be most assuredly bureaucratic bullying overkill, if HMRC really had the resources to do that. Additionally, ICAS is not particularly impressed with the "quality" of some of the people HMRC will be sending into the field and is concerned about the "intransigent attitudes" of these inspectors.

ICAS say:

"..the bases on which these proposals have been presented seem deeply flawed.

Assumptions made by HMRC regarding the incidence of inadequate business records are unsubstantiated by any detail, and estimated costs of the scheme are massively understated. It was not long ago that HMRC were assuring the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board that interventions would be well targeted to reduce red tape for compliant taxpayers, and we fail to understand why this policy has been changed...

HMRC's basic assertion that poor business record keeping is responsible for a loss of tax in up to 2 million SME cases annually seems to be a sweeping generalisation with little credible evidence provided to back it up. We would like to see evidence as to how this statistic has been arrived at, as the validity of the entire consultation document is based on it. Without such evidence, the proposals might appear burdensome and unjustified.

Experience of our members in practice suggests that poor record keeping (where it arises) does not necessarily equate with loss of tax – it can sometimes result in their clients paying too much tax...

We would take issue with HMRC's basic assumption that SMEs with poor records have chosen to have poor records. This is a misconception. Those with the courage and tenacity to embark on new business ventures are forced to battle from the outset against a mass of Government regulation and red tape. Typically they don't go into business because of their record keeping skills...

Anecdotal evidence has caused our members to question the skills and professional judgement of some HMRC representatives checking the business records of their clients. We understand that many of these members of staff have no significant accountancy or tax training. This can cause them to be on the defensive, and in these circumstances it is not unknown for them to adopt intransigent attitudes..."

As we can see, an unelected inefficient bureaucracy is allowing the excessive powers granted to it by a weak and incompetent political establishment to go to its head; and is attempting to use these powers to bully people and organisations that pay for its very existence.

Why have the ICAEW not issued not similar riposte to HMRC's plans?

Too Little, Too Late

The ICAEW, and the other professional accounting bodies, have failed in their bid to delay the implementation of iXBRL.

Treasury Minister, David Gauke, responded to the letter issued by the six bodies:

"Having read your letter and considered it along with other representations, I would like you and HMRC to proceed on the basis that mandation of online filing in iXBRL will go ahead as planned on 1 April."

As I noted a few days ago I am "disappoined to see that the professional institues (inclduing the ICAEW) have taken so long to stir themselves..

Delays have consequences!

The iXBRL Issue

I am disappoined to see that the professional institues (inclduing the ICAEW) have taken so long to stir themselves to put up a fight over HMRC's iXBRL implementaion planned for this April.

ICAS did at least red flag it in July 2009.

In From The Cold

Ernst & Young will take ICAEW students again, having abandoned the ICAEW at the turn of the century in favour of ICAS.

However, Ernst & Young will continue to use ICAS.

A Small Step Forward

Is it possible that this is the first tentative step towards merging ICAS and ICAEW (two equally prestigious professional bodies)?

See Harmonisation of Qualifications

I would welcome that.

Anton Colella Joins The Blogosphere

Welcome to Anton Colella (CEO of ICAS) who has joined the blogosphere.

Ethics - ICAS Leads The Way

ICAS is leading the way when it comes to ethics:

- They introduced a dedicated ethics exam in 2007
- They are considering a voluntary ethics "test" for CPD
- They are considering introducing an annual ethics statement for members
- In 2008 they will publish a number of case studies of ethical dilemmas experienced by ICAS members

Source "Bean Counters or Business Leaders?"

ICAEW does not even have a dedicated ethics exam, why not?

Why is the ICAEW lagging behind ICAS when it comes to ethics?

Ethics

I see that the ACCA have launched an ethics module as part of a drive to make ethics pervasive in the ACCA's exam syllabus.

Given that the ACCA believes that it is important to have a separate ethics module, and ICAS is introducing more ethics courses to its CA syllabus, why did the ICAEW abandon its plans for a separate ethics exam in 2005?

Ethics

Accountants and business leaders in Scotland are to receive more ethics teaching from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland in an effort to improve public trust in financial reporting.

The institute also plans to introduce more ethics courses to its 'CA' qualification, in order to restore the public's trust in the financial services industry and business ethics as a whole.

This is precisely why the ICAEW should not have abandoned its plans in 2005 to have a separate ethics exam.

CA Qualification To Be Offered Outside The UK

ICAS is to offer its CA Qualification outside the UK for the first time. ICAS will offer students in Luxembourg the CA course.

ICAS Chief Executive, Anton Colella said:

"We are breaking new ground by taking the CA qualification outside the UK and onto the continent.

We are responding to clear employer demand for our qualification, which is regarded by many as the 'gold standard' in accountancy training. CAs work successfully in a global business environment – so it made sense to offer business outside the UK the chance to train the leaders of the future through our CA programme."

John Li, Managing Partner, KPMG in Luxembourg said:

"We welcome this excellent initiative from ICAS... We have found that the CA is admirably equipped to satisfy these and other demands from our clients and KPMG are therefore delighted to be at the forefront of supporting this initiative."

Why doesn't the ICAEW opt for in house training, instead of farming it out to third parties?

The ICAEW could then offer its qualification globally, and earn money for doing so, without diluting the brand.