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Highlights from 5 March

30 Mar 2011

Council's first scheduled meeting of 2011 took place on Saturday 5 March. The guest speaker at the meeting was Katrina Wingfield, chairman of the ACCA Regulatory Board, who presented the board's annual report for 2010.

The Regulatory Board was established after the AGM in May 2008 and brings together all of ACCA's arrangements for regulation and discipline in a single entity. The board stands at arm's length from Council and the majority of its members are lay individuals.

The board's report for 2010 represented the second full calendar year of its operation. Council was pleased to note that the board had achieved much in its second year of operation and was reassured that, going forward, it would continue to provide proactive oversight of ACCA's disciplinary and regulatory processes.

A number of other issues were considered in Council's formal sessions.

• Council met in discussion groups to debate one of ACCA's strategic imperatives - embedding Fit for the Customer.
• On a recommendation from Finance Committee, Council approved the proposed budget for the organisation for 2011-2012. It also approved revisions to the suite of achievement measures put in place to track ACCA's strategic performance to 2015.
• In line with its aim to ensure that ACCA's governance is robust and fit for the future, Council agreed a number of recommendations arising from Governance Committee's Governance Review Task Force. The recommendations cover such areas as the development of a long-range governance plan and a standing governance design mechanism, revisions to the Council committee structure and the adoption of a new pattern of committee meetings, and approval of a contemporary and comprehensive re-statement of the role of Council and its members.
• Council considered a paper discussing future directions in corporate reporting. Council examined current developments in corporate reporting, including the need for the current model to be refreshed, and debated whether, for example, integrated reporting provided a solution. Following the debate, Council endorsed a number of conclusions in the paper as the basis of ACCA's position on corporate reporting for the future.
• Under the terms of membership regulation 3(f), Council agreed to invite into full ACCA membership three senior accountants from China - Zhang Lianqi, Jim Yang Zheng and William Huang.
• Council confirmed Martin Turner as its preferred nominee for vice president 2011-2012. (The formal elections for ACCA's officers will take place at the Annual Council meeting immediately following the AGM on 15 September 2011.)

Council's next meeting will be in London on 11 June 2011.