Members who have had the chance to examine the Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2006 will know that I take over the stewardship of ICAI while it is in a position of rude financial health. Credit is due to my predecessors and to Pat Costello and his team for turning around what was a difficult position a number of years ago. We in the Officer Group are particularly pleased that we have been able to commence two ambitious premises projects in Dublin and in Belfast without recourse to the members for any additional levies. Indeed, I look to a future when automatic increases in the annual rate of subscription may not be a necessity.
This current financial position has been achieved against the backdrop of a new range of services. We are offering a wider range of courses through our lifelong learning team including an important new post qualification initiative with INSEAD in France which I was honoured to officially launch. 28 members are attending the first course in Fontainebleu. We see providing new learning supports to already qualified members as critical to support members’ career development after they qualify. The world of work in which we now live and the kind of doors that the CA qualification opens in the business community throw up constant and diverse challenges to CAs. As an Institute, we have to help members meet those challenges.
Our publications division, which has got off to a flying start is another example of our desire to support members’ information and development requirements.
In the more traditional field of representation, we are also keen to make advances. In the last two years we have re-established ourselves as a major player on the tax representation front and we are looking at opportunities of communicating this activity to members via new electronic newsletters.
I say all this because in addition to being a members’ body, ICAI is also a business. Indeed, it is especially in the interests of members that it is a well run business. That’s the way to keep subscriptions at a minimum and to ensure continuous improvement in the areas of representation of and services to members. And like all businesses, it is better to consider the challenges ahead from a position of strength than one of weakness.
One such challenge is the need to develop our training in business route to membership. I say this particularly because the business market has long since shown a need to train accountants and the beneficiaries of this development to date have been the other accountancy bodies. As the second President to follow in immediate succession from the business stream, I see this issue particularly clearly. While most existing members understand well the benefits of being trained in a practice, I think they understand too that ICAI, no more than any other business, also has to adapt to the times. We have operated our training in business programme on a pilot basis for close on two decades, now is the time to give it more serious consideration. We have prospered as a profession for over a hundred years primarily because we have been able to adapt to the changing needs of the business community.
Another issue I am particularly concerned about is the importance of our brand. We all made the efforts and sacrifices to become CAs because we were aware of the standing associated with the qualification. Maintaining that quality linkage is I believe one of the key duties of Council towards the members. In that context I am particularly pleased that CARB, under the Chairmanship of Liam O’Reilly, has got off the ground running. The decision to establish CARB in my view reflects well on ICAI and its membership. If we are to retain the best elements of self regulation it is critical that as much transparency as possible is vested in that system. That we are prepared and able to install non-accountant majorities in all our disciplinary and regulatory committees places us, in my view, to the forefront of professional regulation in both the UK and Ireland. So much so in fact that I know that others, including some of our competitors in the accountancy business, are looking at the CARB model with a great degree of interest. If it succeeds, as I am confident it will, we will have many people following our example.
Finally, I am pleased to report that following a significant operation, Martin Wilson, our Immediate Past President, is up on his feet again and readily available to provide the kind of wise counsel that every incoming new President needs. I am sure you will join me in wishing Martin a full and complete recovery.
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