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Highlights from 6 March

30 Mar 2010

Council's first meeting of 2010 took place as scheduled on Saturday 6 March.
 
During the meeting, Council heard presentations from two external speakers - Katrina Wingfield and Arnold Schilder.
 
Katrina Wingfield is the chairman of the ACCA Regulatory Board. The board was established after the AGM in May 2008 and brings together in one entity all of ACCA's arrangements for regulation and discipline. The board stands at arm's length from Council and the majority of its members are lay individuals.
 
Katrina presented the report of the board for 2009, the first full calendar year of its operation. The report focused on the recruitment of panel members, issues affecting listing times for disciplinary cases, the inspection of files and key initiatives for 2010.
 
Council noted that ACCA had taken the lead in establishing the Regulatory Board in 2008, reflecting the organisation's continuing emphasis on promoting transparency and good governance: no other regulator has quite the same systems of lay oversight or governance.
 
Council was also privileged to welcome Professor Arnold Schilder, chairman of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), and to hear a presentation from him. Professor Schilder spoke on the topic of The Future of Audit and Challenges Facing the Profession, covering the areas of future challenges facing IAASB, the role played by bodies such as ACCA in supporting IAASB's work, audit quality issues, and meeting society's broader assurance needs.
 
Professor Schilder welcomed opportunities to ensure that the audit remained highly relevant to business. He suggested that the audit would continue to be highly value by investors, providing there is a culture of innovation in audit firms, a continuing emphasis on ensuring that corporate and financial reporting produce information of relevance to investors, and addressing issues around liability.
 
A number of other issues were considered in Council's formal sessions.

• Council considered a paper discussing ACCA's policy in relation to the provision of non-audit services by audit firms, which was prepared with input from Council and Technical Committee members with considerable experience in audit work. Council agreed to endorse the proposed policy as the basis for ACCA's public position on non-audit services provided by firms to audit clients.
• ACCA's policy recognises that the provision of non-audit services by firms to their audit clients can threaten the auditor's independence and thus undermine confidence in the audit. However, ACCA does not believe that a complete separation of audit and non-audit services is either possible or desirable. In the light of this, ACCA recognises the importance of professional ethics governing the independence of members and strongly supports the use by professional accountants of the relevant parts of the IFAC Code of Ethics.
• Council considered a report from the Governance Committee in which it was proposed to establish a task force with the aim of carrying out a substantive review of ACCA's governance arrangements in order to ensure that they evolve in a way that supports the transformation occurring on the operational side of ACCA. It noted that initial findings of the task force would be reported to Council at its meeting in June.
• On a recommendation from the Finance Committee, Council approved the proposed budget for the organisation for 2010-2011.
• It confirmed Barry Cooper as Council's preferred nominee for vice president 2010-2011. (The formal elections for ACCA's officers will take place at the Annual Council meeting immediately following the AGM on 16 September 2010.)
• Council considered the regular report of the chief executive (Helen Brand). The report covered a summary of achievements in 2009 as well as a review of ACCA's strategic developments and developments in the wider profession.
• Council noted the results for the ACCA, Certified Accounting Technician, Diploma in Financial Management and Diploma in International Financial Reporting examinations for the December 2009 session. It was pleased to note that a record number of 6,665 students had completed the ACCA Qualification at the session.

Council's next meeting will be in June 2010, when it will meet in Prague as part of the biennial series of meetings held in ACCA's key international markets.