Review Board publishes paper on Protecting the Public Interest
Author:
Daisy Downes
[Excerpt] "Accountants are respected and well liked." If you've just done a double take on that statement then you won't be surprised to hear Colin Reeves saying that views are mixed on whether there is a lack of public confidence in the accountancy profession.
Colin Reeves is the Director of the London-based Review Board, the body charged with keeping under review "the standard setting activities of, and the systems of discipline and professional conduct, and regulation, operated by the accountancy bodies".
The Review Board's remit also covers the activities of three associated bodies - the Auditing Practices Board, the Ethics Standards Board, and the Investigation & Discipline Board.
In setting out its work programme for the next three years, the Review Board has identified some immediate priorities, amongst them, a follow up study of the recent report on Competition issued by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in the UK, as well as several major studies on the regulatory functions of the accountancy bodies in the context of whether they are operating in the public interest.
By way of assisting the Review Board in setting its programme two preliminary studies were undertaken - one of which obtained the views of the users of accountancy services through an analysis undertaken by opinion researchers, MORI, in August / September of last year seeking the views of senior representatives of leading business companies and of business and financial journalists on accountancy and other professions.
Two things came out of that study, explains Mr. Reeves: "One was that accountants are well respected relative to other professions and secondly, that the sympathy and reassurance actually increased over time compared with other professions".
Good news then - but short-lived - since, according to Mr. Reeves, two subsequent studies, one conducted by the Institute of Directors in the UK and the other by BBC Radio/ Accounting Web, have since suggested that there are a lot of question marks against accountants and auditors.
So, will the Review Board be undertaking studies on the views of users of accountancy services on a regular basis?
"This is something that the Review Board is giving some consideration to"said Mr. Reeves.
"??I think we would be interested in doing a study not so much of what people's reaction is to the accountancy bodies but more about what their reaction is to the profession That would be helpful not just to the Review Board but also to the associated bodies such as the Ethics Standards Board and the Auditing Practices Board. And that would help them to set their work programmes. For instance, if there is a huge reaction against auditors, that is something the Auditing Practices Board needs to know about."
The scope of the Review Board's Work Programme outlined in the Protecting the Public Interest document is very broad.
Asked to comment on that, Mr. Reeves says: "The line I am taking is that we've done an analysis which shows what the accountancy bodies do in terms of regulation. Broadly it covers the areas of training - which includes CPD - but it also looks at discipline, and registration and monitoring. This is what the six CCAB accountancy bodies told the Review Board in response to a questionnaire and it�¢??s quite logical if you do an anlysis of what the professional characteristics (of the accountant) are that the actual regulatory function carried out by each of the bodies seems to be eminently sensible. Therefore if we are going to have a three year work programme, it is useful to try to cover all those areas. So basically we tried to ensure that there was comprehensive coverage of all of the regulatory functions carried out by the accountancy bodies."
Accountancy Ireland Vol 34 No 1 February 2002