Anton Colella looks back on the year’s progress for ICAS and considers the challenges of 2012.
Thursday, 15 December
Today, I’ve been in Luxembourg. Europe has been the centre of attention for all of us in recent weeks. The euro debt crisis, David Cameron’s use of the veto and Michel Barnier’s proposals to reform our profession have all been centre stage.
I’ve been meeting members in Luxembourg and along with our President Iain McLaren we have been at a CCAB breakfast event to discuss the European proposals on audit.
The ICAS Council has already had a wide-ranging discussion on Barnier's proposals. The consensus was that ICAS has a role to play in coming up with a positive new vision for the audit profession. Acting in the public interest, our response needs to go far beyond just criticising the proposals.
At this time of the year it is inevitable that you look back on what has been and gone and look forward to the challenges of 2012.
2011 has been an exceptional year for ICAS. We have 1,000 new students this year. That’s one of our highest ever intakes. We’ve launched a new tax qualification. We’ve done some outstanding work in technical, including a joint project with the New Zealand Institute on making financial reporting simpler. ICAS has launched a new brand and re-launched our magazine ‘The CA’. Our new website has gone live – which will be developed as a key point of engagement with our members. We’ve also worked hard to progress our strategy of “Building a Professional Community” across the UK and around the World.
Russell Leslie CA, is one of leading members in Australia. He chairs our ICAS community in Sydney that has developed an extensive programme for CAs there for 2012. Pictured below are Lynn Love, Anna Kerkhofs, Charlotte Hope and Nicola Clelland enjoying ICAS Sydney’s first annual Christmas drinks event, which was held on Tuesday.
This is just the start of setting up ICAS new communities in all the major financial centres around the world.
There are more details here on our website on the international section. Please get in touch if you want to help build the ICAS community where you live and work or if you want to connect with CAs wherever you are travelling around the world.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our CAs, our staff, the firms we work with and our stakeholders in regulation, government, business and finance a very Happy Christmas. I look forward to working even more closely with you in 2012.
Notes to Editorsview
ICAS – the professional body of Chartered Accountants (CAs) – is a regulator, educator and influencer. We act as a thought leader and voice of our professional business community. The CA qualification is unique to ICAS in the UK. It is recognised and respected internationally. We have more than 21,000 members and students across the UK and in more than 100 countries around the world. We provide support, advice and services to our CAs throughout their professional lives. Our members are business advisors, business leaders and entrepreneurs. They play leading roles in 80% of the FTSE 100 companies. Half our members are based in Scotland. The other half work in England and around the globe. ICAS is the world’s first professional body of chartered accountants, founded in 1854. We are a member of The Global Accounting Alliance (GAA) – an alliance of the world’s leading professional accountancy bodies, which was formed in 2005. The GAA is intended to promote quality services, share information and collaborate on important international issues. It works with national regulators, governments and stakeholders, through member-body collaboration, articulation of consensus views, and working in collaboration, where possible with other international bodies, especially IFAC.