============================================================
The censorship policies at ACCA continue. The editor of the in-house
magazine has no editorial freedoms. ACCA Chief Executive continues
to decide what the members should read. Awkward events continue to be filtered
out. Until the Chief Executive and the 'inner council' is removed
there is no prospect of the members receiving 'real' news. In response
to requests from ACCA members AABA will continue to present alternative
news.
The item below was prepared on 22nd April and discussed at a subsequent
Council meeting. ACCA bureaucrats have not bothered to communicate its
significance to members or invited them to comment on the possibilities
for change. As usual, ACCA members are kept in the dark. In the interest
of freedom of information and to enable ACCA members to call the officials
to account we publish the item below.
==============================================
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION UPDATE
1. The paper before Council at pages 291 to 294 of the agenda papers makes no reference to developments with regard to recognition in Canada. As Council has previously been informed, ACCA made a formal submission for recognition to the Canadian International Qualifications Appraisal Board (IQAB) in 1 991; the submission was not successful. At the suggestion of the DTI, a further submission was made in May 1997. No response had been received to that submission, and it was widely suspected that the Canadians had decided to keep their assessment under wraps pending a final decision from US-IQAB.
2. Council will recall that Canadian IQAB's decision after the original 1991 submission was that ACCA members could only be admitted to the various provincial Institutes of Chartered Accountants if they completed courses in Accounting, Auditing, Business Law and Taxation, completed the provincial Institute's School of Accountancy residential course and examination, and undertook a prescribed period of practical experience.
3. A letter has now been received from the Chairman of Canadian IQAB, almost two years after K had received ACCA's submission. IQAB's latest recommendations broadly confirm the existing policy but allow those applicants with a practising certificate possible exemption from the provincial Institute's School of Accountancy programme depending on the 'quality of their experience. Such quality would be determined by an assessment of the amount of experience, the level of responsibility at which it was gained, and whether it was acquired in an approved training office.
4. In reaching its conclusions, which have been copied to the DTI, Canadian IQAB notes that, in its opinion, ACCA's Professional Stage and Audit Orientation Course are not equivalent to the final level CICA examinations in that 'higher level cognitive skills are not tested adequately'. It is also noted that ACCA does not maintain a university degree entrance requirement and the majority of ACCA members do not possess university degrees.
5. The letter from "Chairman of IQAB is supported by a detailed report
on the ACCA qualification and includes an offer to ACCA to ask questions
on the evaluation. Copies of the report have been circulated to Division
Heads in ACCA and to our legal advisers with a view to making a detailed
response. Any response is likely, inter aria, to refer to the equivalence
of the ACCA qualification with that offered by the UK Institutes of Chartered
Accountants and to contrast that with the disparity of recognition in Canada,
where UK Chartered Accountants can join provincial Institutes after completing
examinations in Canadian Tax and Law.