AABA

ACCA leadership is always selective.

The statement from Council told members that "Accounting & Business magazine is widely praised for stimulating ideas, reflecting and representing ACCA’s values and analysing key developments in the profession. It has, deliberately, set out to be both internationally relevant and distinctive and to provide news and up-dates about individual countries and groups of members. In August 1999, one of the signatories to the resolution, William Hipperson, had a letter published in the UK trade newspaper Accountancy Age in which he commended the editor of Accounting & Business for being prepared to publish all letters, even critical ones".

The leadership is quiet about any personal relationship between Dr. Hipperson and the editor of Accounting & Business.
No example is given to show that the magazine has published any 'critical letters'. On the contrary AABA knows of critical letters that are sent but never appear in the ACCA magazine.

If the leadership wanted members to have fuller facts it should have also told them about other letters that have been published under Dr. Hipperson's name. Here are two examples. The first refers to censorship and the editorial control of the magazine by the ACCA chief executive. The second refers to 'creative accounting' by ACCA President. Funny, how the council statement does not mention either. Perhaps, the chief executive, the president and the council did not do their home work. More likely, that they clutch at any straws to save their hide.

LETTER 1: FROM ACCOUNTANCY AGE, 28 November 1996, page 11.

Your correspondent, ‘No longer proud to be a ‘Certified Accountant’ (Letters 21 November)
feels his resignation would go unnoticed by the ACCA establishment. He may be mistaken.
After a protracted (and ultimately fruitless) correspondence with the ACCA, I threatened not to
renew my subscription. Their written response included the chilling passage ‘.... you will no
longer be able to use designatory letters ..... the police generally do initiate proceedings when
they receive complaints .... ‘.

At one point, I reported ACCA to its own disciplinary committee for ignoring my professional
correspondence - no reply was received.

Readers may also wonder why Certified Accountant seldom publishes the comments of
members critical of ACCA. When I raised this with the chief executive I was advised (2 August
1996) that ‘The journal is part of the Members Services operation and each issue is seen at
proof stage by my office, it is not an independent publication such as Accountancy Age’.
The ACCA executive appears to require only two actions from its members - to pay up, and
shut up.

Dr. William Hipperson, Crawley, Sussex

LETTER 2: From Accountancy Age, 10 April 1997, page 11.

“I would not like to dine at restaurant in which ACCA president Peter Langard is the chef as he grossly ‘overeggs the pudding’.

He crows that those opposing the ACCA leadership received less than 3% of the votes of the total membership. On this most interesting accounting presentation, the present government was elected by less than 25% of the total electorate, and the present leadership of the ACCA was endorsed by only 10% of the total membership (even including proxy voting).

I refer Mr. Langard to page 11 of the December edition of his own in-house journal, Certified Accountant. The actual result of the egm was that seven out of ten resolutions received between 20% and 33% of the dissident vote. Unlike Mr. Langard, I read this to mean that up to one-third of the voting members are, in a majority of the resolutions, opposed to the leadership line.

The president's action in publishing his views on one candidate in the imminent ACCA council election is also surprising. To redress the balance, will he also be giving his views on the other candidates? I have formally requested the ACCA legal department to investigate this aspect of his letter.

I understand that Mr. Langard is president of the whole of ACCA. As such, may I suggest that he should seek ti understand the cause cause of the discontent and attempt to reconcile the factions within our organisation. The stature of his high office is not increased by his belittling the degree of opposition to the current ACCA regime”.

W. Hipperson, Lindfield