Nominate Elaine Clark For The ICAEW Council

 

My Twitter chum, and fellow member of the ICAEW, Elaine Clark is standing for election to the ICAEW Council in the North West. 

I wish her all the best, and would ask any members in the North West to sign her nomination papers; as she will be a force for good.

I've decided to stand for @icaew council for The North Westhttps://t.co/oIxG0F6tX4

The way to make change happen is from within

— CheapAccounting.co.uk expert - Elaine Clark (@cheapaccounting) November 12, 2020

Elaine has correctly called out the absurdity of the ICAEW's regional (and indeed international) council structure that not only prevents members from one region nominating members from another, but also does not have space for a "cyberspace" council member.

I think I'd be better suited to:

Strategic Interest Group Representatives

Co-opted members for strategic areas/sectorshttps://t.co/RF0vBFF8kJ

Do you think the @icaew should have a:

"Social Media & Online Digital Practice Member"

on their Council? https://t.co/ro0zMcEMG4

— CheapAccounting.co.uk expert - Elaine Clark (@cheapaccounting) November 12, 2020

 

In 2007 I noted the following:

"Why does the ICAEW claim to be international, yet council elections are decided on a local basis?

Why does the ICAEW insist on prospective candidates for council needing 10 signatures from the local area, before they are even allowed to stand?

Why does the ICAEW need 90, or more, council members?

Operating a Victorian trading association model simply will not do for the 21st century.

Until the ICAEW gets that point it will go nowhere."

In fact in 2007 I tried to stand for council, but couldn't get the nominations because the ICAEW wouldn't tell anyone in Croydon (where I was living at the time) that I was standing. 

Therefore please nominate Elaine, as she might actually achieve what I failed to achieve!

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Council Elections

 

Council elections

Nominations for Elections to Council will open on 12 November 2020 at 12 Noon (GMT) and close on 14 December 2020 at 12 Noon (GMT)

Please ensure your constituency details are up to date by the 16 October 2020 via your ‘My Profile’ tab. 

View the Council constituency vacancies 

• 2021 election timetable and FAQs
• Declaration of interests policy and guidance
• Council election regulations
• Council member role profile

 

Tax Investigation Insurance

Having a Solar Protect Tax Investigation Insurance policy at your disposal means that should you be one of the many 1000's of businesses or individuals that are selected by HMRC each year to look into your tax affairs your own accountant (your tax return agent) can get on and defend you robustly.

You have the peace of mind knowing that your accountant's (your tax return agent) fees will be paid by the insurance without any Excess for you to find.

Tax Investigation Insurance is an insurance policy that will fully reimburse your accountants (your tax return agent) fees up to £100,000 if you are subject to enquiry by or dispute with HMRC.

A Solar Protect policy will enable your Accountant (your tax return agent) to:

• Deal with any correspondence from HMRC
• Attend any meeting with HMRC
• Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal
• Having the security of knowing that fees will be met in full will enable your Accountant (your tax return agent) to defend your position robustly
• Premiums are Annual Premiums.
• Premiums are inclusive of 12% IPT. 
• Premiums and IPT are due in full in advance / at commencement of scheme.
• There is a NIL excess on all policies.

Please click here for details.

ICAEW Council Elections

Those of you who wish to vote in the ICAEW Council elections need to be aware that:

Voting closes at 12:00 BST on 2 May.

Candidate statements can be downloaded via this link.

Council Elections Close at Midday

Council Election voting closes TODAY at 12:00. Read up on candidates here | http://t.co/TinZfhpuTY pic.twitter.com/Da7YyIFGAl

— ICAEW Talk (@ICAEW_talk) May 5, 2015

Communications Glitch

It appears that not everyone has received notification about the ICAEW council elections.

.@ICAEW should I have received an email or letter about the Council elections?

— David O'Keeffe (@djokeeffe) April 17, 2015

@ken_frost tried phoning @ICAEW but no one able to help!

— David O'Keeffe (@djokeeffe) April 17, 2015

Council Elections

The ICAEW is holding elections for Council, the deadline for votes is midday 5 May.

Those of you who wish to read the candidates' statements can do via via this link candidate statements.

With regard to the constituencyy of Oceania, Christie Malry has a pertinent obseravtion:

@ken_frost aren't we at war with Oceania? Or is it Eastasia?

— Christie Malry (@fcablog) April 15, 2015

Results of Bungled Elections

In May this year the ICAEW bungled the elections to council, and were forced to re-run the elections in S Essex, London, Manchester and N-W England.

The results of the re-run of the London elections can be seen via this link.

ICAEW International Constituencies

Accountancy Age reports that the council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has voted (without any form of irony) for the establishment of international constituencies for direct election to the council.

This of course means that the designation "in England and Wales" is now irrelevant and misleading.

Constituencies will be set up in regions and countries where there are at least 2,000 ICAEW members, on the basis of one council member per 2,000 ICAEW members.

As a result, constituencies will be set up in mainland Europe (one member), Hong Kong (one member), North America and the Caribbean (two members) and Oceania (one member) with a view to setting up further constituencies in Africa, China, the Middle East and South East Asia in the future once those areas hold enough members.

Needless to say budget allocations of members' subscriptions, because of this change, will at some stage be reapportioned.

Given that this is such a fundamental change to the ICAEW I am surprised that it was not put to the vote of the members.

I assume that the outdated Victorian trade association rule that states that members who wish to stand for election can only be nominated by 10 members within their region will remain?

Will the ICAEW in the future at least notify members within a region that someone wishes to be nominated, or will they still block that as they did when I tried to stand in 2007?

To The Polls Ye Sons of Freedom!

If anyone is interested, the contenders for position of ICAEW Vice President are:

- Arthur Bailey,
- Ian Davies,
- Nick Parker, and
- Nathan Steinberg

Did anyone actually know that these elections were taking place?

Those of you who are looking forward to vote will be sorely disappointed, the vote is closed to members (only council may vote).

Why are the members of the ICAEW not allowed to vote in these elections?

Poor old ICAEW, can't quite get this "new fangled" democracy thing can it?

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.

The New VP

Congratulations to Gerald Russell, the new Vice President of the ICAEW, who won last week's vote held by council.

For reasons that are unclear to me, the ICAEW official site does not make any mention of the election or of Gerald's victory.

As I said before, it is also a mystery as to why the ICAEW does not allow the ordinary ICAEW members to vote in this election.

Vice Presidential Election

Good luck to the three candidates standing for the position of Vice President of the ICAEW.

They are:

- Gerald Russell, senior partner in the London office of Ernst & Young

- Ian Hayes, managing director at Vataxworld London

- Paul Wagstaff, client partner at HLB Vantis Audit in Wokingham.

Voting closed yesterday, and the successful candidate will be announced at the ICAEW council meeting this Thursday.

The new vice president will take up the role in June. He will then become deputy president after 12 months in office, before being elevated to the post of president of the institute in 2010.

It is a pity, and indeed a mystery, as to why the membership of the ICAEW are not allowed by council to vote for the vice president.

Anyone would think that council and the ICAEW are not interested in the views and opinions of the membership, but only interested in taking our subscriptions from us each January.

Surely not?

Is this an example of effective corporate governance?

The Transparent Council

Over the recent weeks (most especially after having met and had lunch with Michael Izza CEO of ICAEW), I had begun to feel that maybe the ICAEW had finally started to get the message from its members and that it was genuinely trying to make itself more accountable to the membership, relevant and fit for purpose for the 21st century.

Unfortunately that feeling of optimism was blown away when I read Richard Dyson's (President ICAEW) piece in Accountancy (December 2007 page 113) entitled "Seeking Council".

I would provide a link to the piece, but Accountancy haven't entered the 21st century either and don't have it on their website.

In brief, Dyson extols the virtues of the ICAEW council; noting that "council's work is too often unnoticed and unsung..."

Well, there is a very good reason for that; none of the membership are told what council discusses!

In brief I will summarise why I totally disagree with Dyson's views:

• As I have stated on this site on many occasions, the size of council (over 90 people) is absurd (see Best in Class). Dyson attempts to justify the size of council by saying:
  
  "..once a body is larger than, say 15 people, it doesn't really make any difference if it's 30, 60 or 90 strong.."
  
  Clearly he doesn't get it, council should be less than 12 people (as I have outlined on numerous occasions) if it is is to be effective. Following Dyson's "logic" we may as well increase the size to include every member.
  
  I would note that were the same proportion of MP's, compared to the population of the UK, to sit in parliament as there are council members to ICAEW members, we would have a parliament of 42,857 MP's.
  
  Would that be an effective body?



• Dyson proudly states how the ICAEW have made progress, and have tried to make council meetings more transparent and open to scrutiny.
  
  That being the case, why can the membership of the ICAEW not access transcripts of council meetings?
  
  I did raise that question during the ICAEW's abortive merger campaign, and got a very irate email from one member of council who informed me that the minutes of the meetings should not be available to the membership as the were "confidential".
  
  Ah yes, progress indeed!



• Dyson concludes by inviting prospective council members to contact him.
  
  Now I know where I went wrong, when I attempted to stand for council at the beginning of this year. Had I contacted Dyson, then maybe the ICAEW would not have refused to let the Croydon membership know that I was looking for nominations.

Why does the ICAEW claim to be international, yet council elections are decided on a local basis?

Why does the ICAEW insist on prospective candidates for council needing 10 signatures from the local area, before they are even allowed to stand?

Why does the ICAEW need 90, or more, council members?

Operating a Victorian trading association model simply will not do for the 21st century.

Until the ICAEW gets that point it will go nowhere.

Judging from the self congratulatory tone and contents of Dyson's article, it is evident that the ICAEW still doesn't get it.

Consultation

As some of you may be aware, the ICAEW has been conducting a consultation exercise whereby Gracechurch Consulting conduct an hour long telephone interview with selected members of the ICAEW in order to determine the attitudes and requirements of the membership.

I have not been contacted, I am guessing that the ICAEW know my views already:)

However, there is a good summary of the process on "The Small Practice Accountant".

It seems that this is just the start of the process.

Quote from the Small Practice Accountant:

"One of the questions I asked was how many people had been contacted and how many were participating in the initial study. The consultant I spoke too said she would find out and email me. Her reply though said the following:

'With regard to the number of participants in this stage of the study the Institute has asked me to provide you with the following information:

This is an initial stage of exploratory research which will cover members from a range of different segments. We need to review the findings of the exploratory work before a larger scale survey which will cover all segments of the membership can be designed. This will be designed to ensure that accurately reflects the views of all segments of ICAEW membership and it is statistically valid.'"

It seems that the ICAEW has finally started to realise that the membership is not that happy with how things have been run and are being run.

The question is, will the ICAEW have the courage to address the key issues such as; the size of council, the absurd council election process, the fees/costs of the institute etc?

ICAEW Clueless

The ICAEW is clueless, not my words this time but Dennis Howlett's.

Maybe Dennis was thinking about handling of the recent ICAEW Council nominations.

In November the ICAEW wrote to all members, informing them that Croydon had no representation from members "not in practice".

"Election to the vacancy will therefore be 'assured' for a member not in practice provided one or more such candidates come forward..."

Election procedure 18 states:

"To redress the under-representation on Council of members not in practice and, in particular, of members in business, the Council has agreed that, for the years 1995-2007 inclusive, it will 'assure' one seat per constituency for a member not in practice..."

Well, I am not in practice, and I am in business. I offered to stand, and advised the ICAEW as such; but noted that although I know many ICAEW members nationally who would sign my nomination, I knew no one in Croydon.

Despite this, they refused to notify members of my wish to stand.

Given that they could not have possibly known, before nominations were in, as to whether there would have been a non practising member standing, and given that they were asking for non practising members to stand, I wonder why they did not help me inform the members of my wish to stand?

Or maybe I don't:)

The ICAEW Bunker is welcome to comment.

AccMan Supports Frost

My thanks to Dennis Howlett for coming out in support of my candidacy for the forthcoming ICAEW Council elections.

The Times Supports Frost

My thanks to The Times, which has come out in support of my candidacy for the ICAEW Council elections:

"Ken Frost has found one Croydon accountant, so it’s nine to go. As I wrote the other day, Frost, a long-standing critic of the accountants’ professional body in England and Wales, wants to stand in elections to its council. But according to the peculiar rules of the ICAEW, he needs ten nominations first from members of his local association. One has come forward, he tells me, and I may be able to put him in touch with another, if Herne Hill in South London is deemed sufficiently local. The ICAEW insists the rules must be observed in all cases. Frost must run!"

Let us see what happens!

The Times

My thanks to The Times for featuring my campaign to stand for Council.

The ICAEW, the body for accountants in England and Wales, may end up with one of its severest critics on its council — but only if Ken Frost can find ten local accountants first. Frost, who opposed the failed merger between the UK’s various bean-counting bodies, wants to stand in the elections but needs the support of ten members in his area first. "I know many ICAEW members, unfortunately not one of them lives in Croydon," he complains. "We welcome any members who want to get involved," says a spokesman. "That's his prerogative."

Calling Croydon Chartered Accountants

I would be very grateful if any chartered accountants living in Croydon could get in touch with me privately, it is regarding the ICAEW Council elections in January 2007.

My contact details are in the menu bar.

Thanks.

Ken

Closed Shop

Accountancy Age report that the ICAEW has named three candidates up for election as the institute's vice-president.

David Furst, Dennis Cox and Hilary Lindsay have applied for the role.

The successful candidate serves in the position for a year, before serving as deputy president for the same term, and then president the year after.

Two questions:

1 When were the nomination lists opened, and publicised, to the membership?

2 Why are the members, as a whole, not allowed to vote?

This does really rather resemble a closed shop, hardly the best structure for an organisation that claims that it wishes to be at the forefront of the profession in the 21st century!