Never known for consulting members or tolerating a diversity of views, the ACCA leadership has been at it again.

Without consulting members, ACCA leadership has decided to disband the Practice Society. Angry members only learnt the details at the Society's AGM held on 1st July 2000. Angry members passed a motion of  'no confidence' in the leadership.

As all our readers know, the small company audit threshold has now been raised to a turnover figure of £1 million and is due to rise again to £4.8 million. As a result, hardly any ACCA member will be in a position to conduct an audit of a UK limited company. This should result in lower licensing fees.

But the ACCA bureaucrats have got used to raking in easy money. They are not keen to reduce licensing fees and are not interested in dialogue either. So they have unilaterally decided to kill-off the Practice Society. Most ACCA Council members are gutless. They are unlikely to do anything to challenge the rulers of the ACCA.

ACCA members have a simple choice. Either they can continue to pay the exorbitant fees for their practicing certificates and thereby become uncompetitive. Or they can join other accountancy bodies who charge lower fees. ACCA members can sell tax, consultancy and other services by trading through limited liability companies. Most have good reputations and do not really need the ACCA logo. If anything ACCA's monitoring and licensing burdens are a hindrance.

So ACCA members have a choice. They can continue to feed the ACCa bureaucrats or put their own families first.