Plans to protect the term ‘accountant’ would increase red tape and may not be cost-effective, Financial Reporting Council chief Paul Boyle has warned.

Registering the term ‘accountant’ with the Privy Council has become increasingly important for the institutes within the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies as they attempt to prevent people who are not sufficiently qualified from using the term.

The ICAEW has even gone so far as suggesting that the profession be stratified in order to convince the Privy Council to protect the term.

Boyle said he had ‘sympathy’ with the work the profession was doing to register the term. ‘It would be very interesting to see what cost benefit analysis the institutes could produce on this proposal. By definition they can’t have power over non-members, so who is going to do this, and who is going to pay for it?’ he said.