A Poor Choice of Adviser

We are now approaching the last few weeks of the merger campaign, being mounted by the ICAEW.

As I have noted in an earlier post, the ICAEW are hosting a series of roadshows and mounting a publicity campaign; under the direction of their PR firm Media Strategy (perversely enough paid for by us, the membership), brought in to swing the vote of the membership in the favour of the ICAEW.

Unfortunately, those of us who oppose the merger do not have the resources to be able to afford to hire Media Strategy (Media Strategy list the ICAEW as a client); even though we will, via our subscriptions, be paying for Media Strategy's involvement.

I am therefore very grateful to an anonymous visitor to this site who has drawn my attention to the following Early Day Motion (EDM), filed on the 13th of July 2005, by Paul Flynn MP.

The EDM (number 581) concerns the activities of Media Strategy, and urges:

"..all Right honourable and honourable Members to have no contact with the clients of Media Strategy until this matter is resolved; and believes that it is inappropriate for public sector organisations such as the Audit Commission, the Police Federation, Southwark Council, Westminster City Council, The Royal Parks, The Environment Agency and others to retain the services of a company that behaves in this manner.."

It seems that Media Strategy breached the Code of Practice of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (Lord O'Neill had joined their advisory board) and, as a consequence, resigned its membership of that body rather than face an investigation.

The Association of Professional Political Consultants issued a public statement about the affair, on the 11th of July 2005.

Here is an extract:

"..It was agreed by the APPC Management Committee at its meeting on 8th July that there was sufficient prima facie evidence to show that Media Strategy had breached Clause 8 of the APPC Code of Conduct by employing Lord O'Neill to justify referring the issue to our Professional Practices Panel. Media Strategy's early resignation from the APPC means that this course of action is not open to the Association (resignation is not, of course, permitted after a complaint has been referred to the Panel).

The APPC Management Committee was also disappointed by Media Strategy's readiness and happiness to resign from the APPC and therefore its' Code of Conduct. The Committee felt that Media Strategy had dismissed the seriousness of the complaints made against them, and the importance of the Code of Conduct to the industry as a whole. This is unwelcome and inconsistent with the commitment and compliance of APPC member companies to the Code of Conduct and its underlying principles. The Committee felt it inappropriate for any member company to treat membership of the APPC in a similar vein whereby a member would rather resign than sort out the problem or comply with the Code..."

The association of the ICAEW with a body whose reputation is being questioned in this way, does our brand value and image no good whatsoever; it also brings into question the judgement of the ICAEW, in using the services of Media Strategy.

The ICAEW continue to mishandle the merger issue, and their judgement is questionable.

Please vote against the merger.

I reproduce the full text of the EDM below:

EDM 581

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL POLITICAL CONSULTANTS AND MEDIA STRATEGY

13.07.2005

Flynn, Paul

That this House notes with profound concern that the public affairs consultancy Media Strategy, which represents a wide range of public sector and commercial organisations, has been forced to resign its membership of the Association of Professional Political Consultants after a flagrant breach of the Association's Code of Practice; further notes that the breach involved a contravention of Clause 8 of the Code, which prevents the employment of any honourable Member or Peer, or the payment of money or other awards to such honourable Members; is shocked that Media Strategy's response to the investigation of this complaint was to resign from the Association to prevent a formal inquiry rather than to put its house in order; is appalled at the flippant comment of the Media Strategy Director, Charles Lewington, that although Lord O'Neill was indeed to be paid for services to the agency 'he won't be doing much given the money'; welcomes the statement by the Association that the appointment compromised the profession's integrity; urges all Right honourable and honourable Members to have no contact with the clients of Media Strategy until this matter is resolved; and believes that it is inappropriate for public sector organisations such as the Audit Commission, the Police Federation, Southwark Council, Westminster City Council, The Royal Parks, The Environment Agency and others to retain the services of a company that behaves in this manner.

Source Parliamentary Information Management Services

Reasons To Vote No

We are now approaching the last few weeks of the merger campaign, being mounted by the ICAEW.

They are hosting a series of roadshows and mounting a publicity campaign, under the direction of their PR firm Media Strategy (perversely enough paid for by us, the membership), designed to swing the vote of the membership in their favour.

Unfortunately, those of us who oppose the merger do not have the resources to be able to afford to hire Media Strategy; even though we will, via our subscriptions, be paying for Media Strategy's involvement.

Therefore I ask you to help me out in the last few weeks of the campaign, by emailing this post to as many members of the ICAEW and of the media that you know.

Please can you ask them to

-Visit this site

-Forward this post to their friends and colleagues in the ICAEW

-And, most importantly of all, vote against the merger

Reasons To Vote No

• The merger will dilute the brand



• Merging CIPFA and the ICAEW is not a merger of equals, we should be merging "like with like"



• The merger will increase the size of Council, from its current unwieldy and inefficient size of 90, to 115 members



• A two tier membership, as promised by Council, will be confusing to the membership, the outside world and impractical to administer



• Council will renege on its promise to run a dual qualification system



• To hand over control of the governing council of the ICAEW, to a new body, will denude the current membership of its right to veto who can become an accountant



• We should be talking to ICAS about merging, not CIPFA and CIMA



• The ICAEW have mismanaged the merger proposal from day one, by talking to the wrong bodies and by antagonising ICAS over the choice of name



• The Audit Commission has noted that 25% of submitted local council accounts have to be resubmitted, because of significant errors and "significant" departures from UK GAAP



• The mixture of qualifications that the merged body would embrace, would mean that it could not accurately claim to be called The Institute of Chartered Accountants



• The proposal to takeover CIPFA will add only another 13500 members to our numbers, that represents a mere 11% of our current membership. This will not alter the status quo, or increase our standing within the financial community



• If the merger were truly "revenue enhancing", as the ICAEW would have us believe, why did they raise subscriptions by 9% for 2006?



• The ICAEW is meant to represent the interests of its members, yet it is ignoring the membership and wasting our money on trying to convince us of the need to merge with CIPFA

Thanks for your help and support.

Ken Frost FCA

www.stopthemerger.org

D Day

The deadline for casting your vote on the merger proposal is the 25th of October.

Please remember to vote, and please ensure that you encourage/motivate your fellow ICAEW members to visit this site and to vote against the merger.

The ICAEW need 67% of those who vote to vote in favour, if the motion is to pass.

Remember, as the ICAEW says:

"Our rigorous integrated education and training programme produces chartered accountants, auditors and business advisers, who are valued above all others in practice, industry, commerce and the public sector, in the UK and worldwide.

..The qualification will retain all the features that have made it the premier accountancy qualification in the world"

Let us ensure that our qualification, and brand, retains this premier position.

Thank you.

Ken

ICAEW Further Antagonises ICAS

The Herald reports that, in a move guaranteed to further antagonise the one body that we should be discussing merging with, Carl Bayley the Chairman of the ICAEW has stated that the merged institute will enjoy a huge rise in influence in Scottish affairs.

He claims that the removal of the "England and Wales" part of the name will eliminate the prejudice shown by the Scots to the ICAEW, which he says has had little influence to date in Scotland.

Des Hudson, chief executive of ICAS, is not impressed:

"The ICAEW is well aware of the concerns that ICAS has on their proposal to change their name to 'The Institute of Chartered Accountants'. The global convention for chartered institutes is, after all, to use the national designation in their names".

Media Strategy

I understand that the ICAEW are using the services of Media Strategy, a PR firm based in London, to help them sway the membership in favour of the merger.

Media Strategy describe themselves, on their website, as being:

"London's fastest growing agency, specialising in corporate communications and government relations..."

I wonder what their advice to the ICAEW will be, and how much it will cost us (the membership)?

CIPFA's E-Newsletter

Visit CIPFA's August E-Newsletter, and read the title of their article about the proposed "integration".

Notice anything wrong?

Kudos to Accountancy Age for spotting this first.

Call For Resignation

Bruce Lawson, who is leading the Welsh campaign against the merger, communicated the results of his straw poll to Ian Morris (President of the ICAEW) in a meeting last Thursday.

Quote:

"The second straw poll we have taken, which I will communicate to Accountancy magazine, has indicated that from 300 practising members, 47 were against, 2 were in favour, 8 were undecided and the rest did not reply. I think it would be unwise to assume that the non-replies mean that they are in favour of the 'consolidation proposals'".

He notes on his website that if the merger proposal is not voted through, then the CEO of the ICAEW should resign.

To read more, visit Bruce's site, and scroll down to the bottom.

Merge Like With Like

My thanks to the anonymous person, calling himself/herself XYZ, who sent me the following message today (exact quote):

"It is narrow minded to resist merger of icaew,cima and other accounting bodies".

I normally respond privately to private messages. However, no email address was provided.

I would note that I am not against the merger of "like with like". In a recent interview (featured on this site), published in Accounting & Business I am quoted as being in favour of discussing a merger with ICAS:

"Ken Frost, ICAEW member, who has set up a website dedicated to rallying members to stop the merger, says he isn't against consolidation.

'I would be delighted if we could enter into discussions with ICAS. We have to merge like with like,' says Frost."

However, as repeated ad nauseam, I believe that the merger of CIPFA will dilute our brand.

We, if we wish to merge, must only merge "like with like"

Featured

My thanks to Accounting and Finance 365 for featuring this site in the Feature section of Editor's Corner.

See Accounting and Finance 365

CIPFA Regional Meetings

CIPFA is inviting their members and students to give their views on the proposed consolidation with ICAEW, at a series of meetings around the country.

The President of CIPFA, Vice President or immediate Past President or a representative will attend these events.

The announcement says that the agenda is deliberately unstructured to encourage a dialogue.

All meetings are hosted by the region in which the meeting takes place.

There is one important point that we should not forget, namely that the membership of CIPFA also have to approve of the merger as well as the membership of the ICAEW.

It would be highly embarrassing for the ICAEW if CIPFA rejected the merger.

One other point that caught my eye on the CIPFA website, is the fact that the CIMA logo is still displayed in the header.

CIMA, you will recall, have pulled out of the current merger plans. Is the inclusion of their logo on the CIPFA site merely an oversight, or has no one told CIPFA that CIMA have pulled out?

The timetable can be viewed via this link Regional Meetings.